


two bodies

by jeannedarc



Category: VIXX
Genre: M/M, Other, Space AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:36:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13407483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannedarc/pseuds/jeannedarc
Summary: “My fuel cells ran out of juice,” Wonsik says shortly, unsure as to whether or not whoever has answered his beacon even has the capability of assisting him. “I’m prepared to let you board if you can help. Just...let me know, I guess. But it’s gotta be kinda fast -- I’m, um, I’m working and I’m late for a delivery.”





	two bodies

**Author's Note:**

> hello again  
> what do i even say about this  
> i love space  
> i love vixx  
> that's all i got  
> thank you to [riley](http://archiveofourown.org/users/toastyhyun) for holding my hand for the longest year of my life  
> thank you to space for existing  
> thank you to you if you read this absolute monster in one go

He’s lucky the stars don’t blink out here, the way they do back home, or else he’d be totally screwed, lost to time, left to his own devices until the life support ran out and he was left in complete darkness to suffocate…

Ah, but that’s a morbid thought, Wonsik decides, running his hand through his dirty black hair, wishing he could’ve made time to take a shower before today’s trip. God help the individual who decides to pick up on his distress beacon and help him out; he’s pretty sure he’s the most disgusting human being in the entirety of the galaxy right now. He sits in the cockpit of his craft -- a small ship, barely bigger than the average craft on the market these days and slightly outdated, but a reliable machine all the same, even if every once in awhile she acts as if she’ll break down.

Y’know. Like she has.

 _Technically_ she isn’t broken down, he notes, staring at the fuel readout on the control panel. _Technically_ he just overestimated the reach of his fuel tank, something he almost never does, and _technically_ he is only lost for a little bit, this particular spot just off-trail and visible to most traffic. There might be a lot of places to go in outer space, but most people don’t want to get caught in an asteroid belt, or a cloud of meteors, or worse -- someplace unexplored, somewhere off the map, an area that only the strange and seedy explore.

He traces the pad of his index finger along the button for his emergency signal. He’s unlucky that taillights aren’t a thing out here; he’d probably get help a lot sooner. At least the power in the craft is still on. He stands up, shuffles along in stocking feet -- something about driving in shoes has always bothered him -- and goes to the kitchen, makes himself a quick snack of peanut butter and pretzel sandwiches, throwing the butter knife into a dismayingly full sink, stacked high with dishes. Any minute now.

Except any minute turns into half an hour turns into an hour pretty quick, and he’s running equally low on both patience and pretzels. He’s about to send a transmission to the local space rescue force, not knowing how long it takes them to field their calls, when he gets a hail from a craft approaching from the rear.

He flicks on the video of his communication module, wiping crumbs from his fingers on the thick flannel of his shirt hem so he can push his bangs out of his eyes.

The craft that’s come to his rescue must be an old one, judging by the amount of static on the video screen when it comes to life in a flash of black and white. Wonsik raises an eyebrow, wondering if this is one of the strange and seedy of whom he’s been so apprehensive. He doesn’t even get a clear shot of the face, and interference runs through the soft, high voice speaking to him, asking him what happened.

“My fuel cells ran out of juice,” he says shortly, unsure as to whether or not whoever has answered his beacon even has the capability of assisting him. “I’m prepared to let you board if you can help. Just...let me know, I guess. But it’s gotta be kinda fast -- I’m, um, I’m working and I’m late for a delivery.”

A hum crackles over the other side of the video comm, and Wonsik’s brows knit together. “I’ll be there in about five minutes.” A pause, a brief flicker of strangely-shaped lips curling into a sour sort of frown. “Open your hatch, I’ll help you if I can.” Then the line goes dead, and Wonsik is left scratching at the back of his neck, nervous, unsure.

He does as he’s told anyway, of course; who is he to refuse help in a situation like this no matter what he might think of it? Although the idea of calling out to some officials still is in his mind, help is already here, and he supposes he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Leaning forward in his cockpit seat, Wonsik presses the button that opens his entrance hatch, enabling this complete stranger to enter his beloved ship.

Ten minutes pass before the aging red light illuminates, signaling that help has, indeed, arrived. He raises an eyebrow, sighs a heavy sigh, pushes his hair from his forehead for about the billionth time since running out of fuel. Then he makes his way to the hatch, slipping on his shoes when he presses the button that opens the door into the antechamber.

His transport terminal is glowing faintly, and in the center of it stands probably the most awkward looking dude he’s ever seen in his life -- tall, slightly slackjawed, full but small lips and wavy blond hair and tall, so, so incredibly tall, with the longest legs Wonsik thinks he’s ever seen. He might be from Earth, or an official Earth colony at the very least; the only question Wonsik has about it is that he isn’t wearing the usual government-issue jumpsuit one wears when they’re from the planet. It almost gives off the impression that he’s one of those space pirates you read about in the news every once in awhile, claiming their own corner of this galaxy or that planet and terrorising everyone.

But… space pirates aren’t really known for their kindness, are they. Wonsik scrubs his palms over his face, then offers an awkward wave and a quiet smile. “Hey, thanks for picking up my signal,” he says, crossing the room and offering his hand to shake.

The man mumbles a greeting, paying no heed to the handshake proffered him, instead holding out-- holy shit, are those brand new fuel cells? Still in the casing and everything? Wonsik blinks, disbelief washing over him. They can’t be. No one just hands out _brand new fuel cells_ , not even to their closest family members, let alone people they’ve never met. It just isn’t the way things are done, at least not in his experience.

“Taekwoon,” he says, clearly growling a little impatient as he shakes the cells over which Wonsik is practically salivating. They must’ve cost a fortune, he can’t imagine the amount of bullshit someone has to go through to get them, and they’re being _given_ to him, he can’t believe-- “Do you know how to install them yourself?”

Almost a little too eagerly, Wonsik nods. “Yeah, I...yeah. Thank you, wow, holy shit, I never thought someone would just--”

Taekwoon, the man, steps just off the teleporter platform, shoves the fuel cells into Wonsik’s hands. “Then install them,” he says, soft of voice but firm of command. “I have to go, I’m working too.”

Wonsik, dumbfounded, looks from the cells in his hands, then to Taekwoon’s face, then back down even as the telltale high-pitched hum sounds through the teleporter hatch. “How can I repay you?”

“Don’t,” Taekwoon says, stout, as he shimmers out of being, presumably going to his own ship.

Wonsik is bright red, feeling the heat prickle under his hairline, at the shells of his ears. He could literally save up his entire life and never be able to repay this debt. But that doesn’t mean he can’t try. He makes a mental note to get the signature on Taekwoon’s craft, figure out at least how to find him at some later point, to give him a thank you appropriate of the gift given him.

For now, he supposes, setting the cells carefully down on the telecomm panel in the hatch, he should probably get to work. He’s already over an hour later to his delivery, and the people on the planet to which he’s going will probably not be happy that they’re getting their food late.

* * *

Several hours later, he’s landing on Lastorix, and as he docks even the flight control person seems kind of upset with him, giving him the flattest clear to land he’s ever received. He knows that a lot of people depend on him to feed them, and doesn’t take that lightly, but at the same time, he’s not entirely sure that he deserves this kind of ire. Accidents happen, after all. What if he would’ve died out there? Who would’ve brought them their nutrient supplements then?

Lastorians are not the prettiest race, in his opinion, their faces made of many folds not unlike a pug but with six eyes instead of two, so maybe the nasty looks he gets as he makes his way to customs so that he can have his cargo checked are just… how they look. Or maybe they hate him a little. Or maybe he smells. Their noses, if they can be called that, are just giant holes on either side of their pudgy faces, and they seem to expand a little when he passes by them. He can’t tell if it’s anger or that he really needs a shower.

Even as he’s filling out paperwork, explaining the lateness of his delivery, Wonsik is thinking of other things, deliberately focusing on anything but the customs officer’s six eyes, all bearing down intently on him. He swears he hears “fucking humans” come from under the officer’s breath, inner ear tickled by the instant translator he wears as per his company’s orders, and nearly rolls his eyes in response. But respect has always been a big part of his job, even if sometimes he has to pretend to have it, so he smiles his best and signs the last line on the paperwork presented him, offering it back to the officer.

The Lastorian customs officer sniffs, their many nose holes contracting, and dismisses Wonsik without another word.

He’s more than ready to go back to his ship, take a shower, take a nap, wait here contently while someone else unloads his cargo hold. He feels like grease incarnate and needs to relax, needs to get away from these Lastorians before they decide that he’s the more appetising option in this equation. (Not that he believes the rumours about Lastorians eating human flesh, mind, he’d just rather not chance finding out that he’s a delicacy three star systems from home.)

Only when he reaches the docking platform to which his ship is parked does he run into about the last person he expected to see. Tall, tall, tall, blond hair, slightly slackjawed. Wonsik mirrors that expression, tripping over himself and literally falling into Taekwoon, who catches him under the arms and helps him to stand upright.

“What are you doing here?” Wonsik asks when he’s dusted himself off, as if his dirty government-issue jumpsuit is going to get any cleaner. When Taekwoon just shrugs, saying nothing, Wonsik furrows his brow, confused. “You didn’t follow me here, did you? I’m kind of at work…”

“Wanted to make sure you’re okay.” Taekwoon’s got his hands tucked behind his back, and -- he might be placid and unreadable to some people, but Wonsik’s best friend is the hardest person in the fucking universe to communicate with, and so Wonsik knows embarrassment when he sees it. “Are you?”

“Yeah, I’m great.” Wonsik offers the most sarcastic of smiles. “Love getting followed on my delivery route. It’s awesome.” Then he remembers the overwhelming gratitude he’d felt just hours before, and his face softens as quickly as his heart. “I’m, um, thank you. For helping me, back there.”

“Shut up,” Taekwoon sniffs, seeming to curl in on himself even further, cheeks dusted a faint shade of pink. “Don’t let it happen again.”

“I won’t.” Wonsik glances off, letting Taekwoon have his own embarrassment in relative privacy. When he seems to unfurl at least a little, Wonsik clears his throat. “I wanted to track your signature. You know, that way if we’re ever in the same star system again, I might be at least able to repay you with a drink.”

“So do it.” The way Taekwoon says it is like a challenge, almost as if he knows what Wonsik is going to say next.

For his part, Wonsik huffs, feigning frustration. “That’s the thing. I tried to trace you through our telecomm records, but you’re not registered.” Taekwoon hums, a neutral sound, neither assent or dissent. “Are you a space pirate, Taekwoon? Are you running from something? Did you steal your ship from someone…?”

Taekwoon turns to leave. “I’ll trace you, instead,” he nearly whispers over his shoulder. “Bye, Wonsik.”

If Wonsik, at any point, were to deny watching the shapes of Taekwoon’s legs through his too-small, tattered jumpsuit, the way his muscles move under the fabric, he would probably be the biggest liar of all time. But he shakes the thought away, goes back to locating the dock at which his ship is parked.

* * *

“You’ll never be a farmer if you spend your life reading,” Hongbin says, curled up into Wonsik’s side, cold feet tucked between Wonsik’s warm shins as he watches him over the top one of those tablets with the projectable holoscreen. His face, typically handsome, is a smiling one, but not the kind sort he usually offers his best friend, and the light from his holoscreen casts his dimples in a strange glow.

It’s Wonsik’s week off, and Hongbin’s got the evening to himself, so of course they’re curled up together on the bed in Hongbin’s bunker, Wonsik studying as he always does -- the nutritional needs of the Viulese from the backwoods star system of Jofloria, tonight, though he’s sure he’ll end up just studying for his ecological exams instead.

Wonsik, for his part, shakes his head, flicks the slightly-cracked screen on his own tablet so that new words, new charts and formulas, are there before him, waiting to be read. “How did you do it, then?”

“You know how I did it.” Hongbin rolls his eyes, sits up, rests his chin on Wonsik’s shoulder. “I’m pretty sure farming is one of those things you’re either born into or you don’t want to do.”

Wonsik wants to retort that not everyone can be born and raised on the same planet, these days, that some people actually have to work to achieve their dreams, but they both know that Hongbin doesn’t like being a farmer any more than Wonsik wants to be the modern day version of the farm boy that drives the ancient Chevy with the bed full of bushels of apples perpetually on his way to market, so the point is kind of moot. Instead of saying anything, Wonsik huffs, shifts so that Hongbin’s feet are trapped between his knees. “I like studying,” he says in his most neutral tone.

Hongbin laughs, a little high, a lot humourless. “You hate studying. You just know that you have exams on your next off-week.”

Wonsik doesn’t deign to reply, instead flicking to the next page, mentally acknowledging that he’ll have to go back and reread whatever he’s studying now anyway.

“You seem…” Hongbin’s tone has softened, now, with something akin to concern. “I don’t know. Weird. Like you haven’t told me something.”

Wonsik turns just enough to set his tablet down in the space between himself and the railing at the end of Hongbin’s bed. “I haven’t?” He pretends to be innocent, folding his hands in his lap, which earns him Hongbin’s most judgmental glare. “...Don’t look at me like that, okay.” So he very quickly recounts meeting Taekwoon, leaving out the part about the extremely expensive gift the man had given him, and about meeting him again on Lastorix.

When he’s finished, Hongbin is sitting up, knees to his chest and arms wrapped around them, listening intently. He pauses a few beats before grinning. “So you got his trace?”

“That’s the weird thing,” Wonsik mumbles, picking up his tablet again. “He didn’t have one.”

“So he’s illegal?” Hongbin’s eyes glint in that evil way they do, and Wonsik bites his lip, careful not to say too much here. “You’re sure he was even human?”

“Super sure. I touched his hand.”

“Scandalous. Wonsik Kim, Future Farmboy Of Ochion, holding hands with a hot guy who saves him from trouble? I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Dude, shut the fuck up, it wasn’t like that.” If his hands weren’t occupied Wonsik swears he might throttle his best friend, but then Hongbin is laughing and Wonsik’s ice-cold anger melts, as per usual.

He wants to be angry, but fuck if he hasn’t been thinking about the shape of Taekwoon’s mouth since he docked at home three days ago, since he stopped moving long enough to actually _think_.

Hongbin, for his part, gives Wonsik a knowing smirk. “So let him trace you. Keep open comms when you pass by where you met, next time. Then hold his hand for real. It’s the first step on the road to seduction.”

“I like that you’re just assuming I’m gonna seduce him.”

Hongbin’s eyes gleam with mirth, and Wonsik really wants to grab him by the face and pinch his cheeks, but refrains, turns his eyes back to his studies. “You don’t get weird about just anyone.”

The troubles of having a best friend who probably knows everything there is to be known in the universe, Wonsik supposes, are endless.

* * *

Halfway across the universe, a fully grown man is curled up in the tiniest bed of all time, bunked up in his ship as it hums its way along the star system he used to call home. His knees are to his chest, his arms wrapped around the backs of his thighs. He has been, of all things, thinking far too much. There’s no destination in mind for this particular trip -- he’s been doing that quite a bit the last few days, months, years -- and he’s so close to his parents’ estate that it would be easy to cross the craft he’s currently piloting, change the programmed destination, land on that well-manicured, artificial lawn, the light of the stars twinkling down through the hazy atmosphere…

He sits up, pushes his fingers through his platinum fringe. He stares out the window, at the dim blips of light that pass by his ship as he makes his way through space. Another day, another useless voyage.

The tracer at his control panel creaks to life, making an urgent noise. There are only two people he looks out for even in background processes, so obviously this is an emergency of some kind. He hops up from his bed, pads over in his bare feet, the life support having made the floor cool enough to send a brief shudder rippling through him that only ends when he takes a seat in his pilot’s chair. Without even seeming to process the action, he flips a couple switches, and the tracer flickers on after a brief moment of static.

His heart might sink a little at the realisation of who it is that his ship’s picked up in the vicinity. He sends a telecomm anyway, just a quick message instead of a full conversation.

“Hakyeon,” he breathes into the mic, careful not to be too quiet to be detected by the processors, “it’s Taekwoon. You’re nearby? The usual place.” Short, sweet, to the point. He clicks off his comm device, quickly changes his craft’s autonav settings, and goes right back to his bed, tucking his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling.

He’s not worried about the flurry of subsequent comms that come; they always meet at the same place, and Hakyeon hasn’t exactly mastered telecommunications the way he likes to think he has. Or conversation, for that matter.

A couple hours later, Taekwoon is fully dressed, clean, looking like a real human being for all intents and purposes. His craft has landed on Furia, a real desert shithole of a planet, very sparsely populated -- in fact, as far as Taekwoon is concerned, that’s the planet’s only appealing quality. So unsettled is this planet, in fact, that it doesn’t even have a proper space station on its surface, just a tiny landing strip where a few ships have parked, their occupants more than likely in an emergency.

(This is where Taekwoon met Hakyeon some seven or so years ago -- Hakyeon, ever paranoid, had made a hail Mary attempt to get away from imaginary mercenaries after his head and landed on what was essentially a half-step up from an empty moon, and he wrecked his ship. Taekwoon, in an attempt to find something akin to inner peace, had witnessed all this and offered to help fix Hakyeon up, no return on the favour. They’ve been best friends ever since.)

The landing strip has one particularly odd feature -- an almost desolate bar and grill that runs entirely on the labour of cyborgs. A sign hangs to the left of the front door: _”We don’t want your money; we just like making food!”_ Taekwoon’s always wondered if this place has something to do with the cyborg rebellions in the adjacent star system, but has never been bothered to look it up.

When he enters the metallic building, surrounded by equally metallic fixtures and the twang of efficiently-used metallic tools clanking from the kitchen in the back, there’s only one other breathing being in the dining room, stuffed in the corner booth. He goes to that spot, slides into the uncomfortably cold seat, rests his palms on the table and stares across its surface at the one person who could possibly be conceived as his best friend.

“It’s been awhile,” Hakyeon says, tracing idle words and shapes into the steamed-over tabletop, condensation caused by his extreme body heat. “Where’ve you been?”

“Everywhere,” Taekwoon says stoically. This is their routine, a conversation they’ve had every time they’ve met up for the past five or more years, and he takes a strange comfort in the repetition, in seeing Hakyeon’s jet-black eyes again. “What about you?”

This is where the custom diverts, Hakyeon falling quiet, his pale lips against his deep orange skin forming a straight line. He’s shy, suspicious, in this moment, something very unlike him. “I’ve been with someone,” he confesses at last. “Travelling. Doing work. Trying to lay low.”

“Did something happen?” Taekwoon asks, brows lifting beneath his fringe. HIs voice drops. “Have they been looking for you?”

“No,” and here Hakyeon sort of wistfully sighs, “no, I haven’t heard from them in awhile, in any context. I’m kind of hoping they burnt themselves out conquering a planet that was too big.” A sad smile curls the corners of his mouth; his third eye, a shade of cyan that Taekwoon can only describe as ethereal and glittering with a million silver stars, opens, peeks out from beneath his hair. “Trust me, I’ve been looking out for them. But you know me.”

Taekwoon does know that Hakyeon is paranoid of those who search for him, and with good reason -- should they find him, they’d murder him on the spot, consider his body a trophy of war and hang it in various pieces on the walls of their consulate -- and worries for him in a silent way. He wants to ask if there’s anything he can do in regards to keeping his friend safe, but they’ve had this conversation before, a retired, circular dialogue that ends in both of them frustrated with one another and Hakyeon insisting that he can’t get someone else into trouble on his own account.

Taekwoon doesn’t mind trouble, never has, but Hakyeon’s one true fault is not being selfish when he needs to be.

Hakyeon folds one glowing orange hand over the other, studying Taekwoon’s face with great care before inhaling, speaking again. “You look different. Happier. Is there something you want to tell me?”

He wrinkles his nose in response -- is there anything of great import that’s been happening to him, recently? If there is, he can’t think of it. But then the mental image comes rushing back, a dirty traveler in great distress, with kind eyes and an awkward smile and a definite need of more help than he knows how to take, and maybe, just maybe, Taekwoon’s human face colours a little, betraying him entirely.

Hakyeon smiles that all-knowing smile of his, the one that has always made Taekwoon feel just that little bit inferior, and reaches over, touching the back of Taekwoon’s hand in the gentlest way possible. The warm surface of his skin sends a chill throughout Taekwoon’s entire body, but even so he doesn’t move away. “I just helped someone, a little while ago,” he finally confesses in the smallest possible voice. “He was…”

The quiet lasts a beat, then Hakyeon gives him a look as his third eye slips closed. “He was?”

“I don’t know,” Taekwoon says at long last. “He was him. I was me. But it was a different me.”

“You know that doesn’t make any sense.” Hakyeon’s voice, though inclined to do so under any other circumstances, does not twinkle with the same kind of amusement he’d find if Taekwoon were somehow a different brand of himself. “You’re just you.”

Taekwoon lifts his head a fraction, fringe hanging in his eyes in such a way that he can only get about two-thirds of what he knows he’s supposed to be seeing. What he can see, however, is that little twinkling of blue in Hakyeon’s chest, glowing bright through the fabric of his clothes, as if he’s holding something back, or lying, or doing something he shouldn’t be doing. He chides his friend silently by reaching out and tapping him a couple times on the forearm.

They’re about to get into one of their arguments -- the kind where Taekwoon is totally silent until the end, after listening to at least a solid fifteen minutes of Hakyeon ramble on about whatever -- when Hakyeon’s comm, tucked in the folds of his shirt, goes off, the sound maybe a little more faint than the ones Taekwoon is used to and a result of being so close to something so hot. Hakyeon rolls his eyes, takes the device from his clothes, rests it on the table and presses the button to accept the transmission.

A decidedly good-looking fellow, of alien origin and with neon pink skin and quite possibly the strangest haircut Taekwoon has ever seen, is there on the screen hologram that pops up. He offers a wave; Hakyeon offers one back. They speak a little, back and forth in what sounds like sharp jabs and in a language Taekwoon doesn’t quite understand -- he really needs to get his language databases upgraded, and soon, seeing as this isn’t the first time he’s run into a problem with translation -- and then finally the pink one says, in a tone of the purest indifference, “Jaehwan wants to know when you’re coming back.”

Despite his own voice, one of irritation, Hakyeon lets a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll be there soon. Let him know, would you?” He hangs up just as quickly as he’s answered, puts the device back where it’d come from, and turns his attention to Taekwoon once more. “I know you like to do that whole ‘see the galaxy one planet at a time’ thing,” he says, fondly, hand finding the back of Taekwoon’s again just to idly brush over the skin there, warming him to the core with just a simple ghosting of fingertips. “But we’re doing a lot of scientific stuff for that kid who just called. It could be interesting, if you wanted to come see some moons you probably haven’t before.”

Taekwoon nods wordlessly, wondering what ‘scientific stuff’ entails. He keeps his silence as Hakyeon stands up from the table, brushing imaginary space dust from Furia’s sandy surface off his thighs.

“Whatever happened,” he says, and fuck if he doesn’t sound like the most smug individual in the entire universe in this moment, “you seem a little happier. Even if you weren’t the you that you know, maybe it was a you that was alright.”

Then he’s gone, a soft trail of pale orange light left in his wake as he makes his way out to his personal pod parked out front. “Maybe you’re right,” Taekwoon murmurs when he’s sure Hakyeon is far enough away that he can’t hear. He’d never live it down if Hakyeon knew that he could be right about anything.

* * *

They meet again, completely by accident, several weeks after Taekwoon’s meeting with Hakyeon on Furia. Taekwoon has actually been looking for his best friend, to no avail, and is taking a rest on a small, mainly aquatic planet called Cagripe 42; the natives there are friendlier than he remembers them being, possibly because he’s been there a few times before. It’s one of his favourite places to visit in the star system.

He’s in the capitol, leaning against a railing and watching the way the two small suns, at different angles in the sky, catch the murky green of the water, turn it into a glimmering jade surface of unbroken glass, when he swears he feels someone’s eyes boring into the back of his neck. Maybe Hakyeon’s inherent paranoia is rubbing off on him -- but no, that’s definitely the heat of another person’s stare. He turns from his spot at the rails, and there is Wonsik, looking utterly beleaguered but handsome as ever, decidedly cleaner than he had been the last time they’d come into contact but otherwise just the same.

Taekwoon, unsure as to the nature of this serendipitous meeting, offers an awkward little wave, a bow of his head, hair covering his eyes in the process. Wonsik does the same, of course, but smiles along with it, and a little relief seems to pass over his features. Then he approaches, all the casualness of someone with whom Taekwoon had been lifelong friends, rather than someone he’d helped once, a few months ago.

“I tried to trace you,” Wonsik says, by way of greeting, resting his weight on his elbows and his elbows on the rail of the platform on which they’re both standing. Taekwoon surmises that he must’ve followed him up here, seeing as there’s only one way on or off this spot, and wonders if maybe a change of look is in order, so as to make himself a little less conspicuous. “You know your ship is illegal?”

Taekwoon hums his assent -- of course he knows; he’s been illegal since he left home quite a few years ago -- and turns around, knees bending a little so that they’re at the same height and looking out at the same celadon sea. “I didn’t think you’d actually try,” and his voice might be a little higher than normal, not that Wonsik would know, but it might be, just a result of how completely touched he is.

They stay like this, quiet, neither of them feeling the need to fill the silence. “While we’re here, would you maybe wanna get something to drink?” Wonsik asks softly, after a long enough pause that the lower sun in the sky has set, only the top curve of it peeking up over the horizon.

Taekwoon makes a thoughtful sound, then says in his softest tone, “I wonder if they serve coffee here.”

If Wonsik looks just a little too happy at the not-agreement, if he smiles just a little too brightly, if Taekwoon’s heart skips a beat just at the sight of him, so sleepy-eyed but excited -- well, it’s neither here nor there. And if Taekwoon wants to watch over Wonsik, who nearly trips over himself descending the stairs that lead to and from the platform on which they were standing, who can blame him?

They make their way to the only café on the planet that caters to human palates in any way, and Wonsik holds the door open for Taekwoon, who grimaces at the gesture but lets it happen anyway. “You don’t have to do that,” he says, faint colour rising to his cheeks. Wonsik just sort of half-grins, shaking his head and leading them to a table, near enough to the door that either of them can make a quick escape should they so choose, but far enough that they won’t be disturbed by the tinkling of the little chime hanging over the entryway every time it rings. He pulls out Taekwoon’s chair for him too, and the sour expression on Taekwoon’s face melts away at the realisation that it _isn’t_ an act, that Wonsik really _is_ a gentleman.

After a long moment’s silence, of gazing across the table at one another in utter disbelief that they’re actually _here_ , Taekwoon cracks the tiniest of smiles. “You really tried to find me?” he asks, eyebrows inching up his forehead until they disappear beneath his long, semi-kempt hair.

“Yeah, of course.” Wonsik says this as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, as if only Taekwoon hadn’t realised it was inevitable. “I said I’d pay you back, didn’t I?”

“Ah.” He’s about to remind Wonsik that no debt is owed, here, that even a lifetime of delivering food probably couldn’t cover the cost of a brand new fuel cell the likes of which Taekwoon had so freely given, when the waitress saunters up and offers them menus, rattles off the specials. Neither of them have much experience in Western Earth cuisine, so they both sort of half-assedly guess at what they want, save for Taekwoon’s coffee, which, when he orders it, lights up his entire face. Wonsik orders himself a beer, the brand name of which he’s never heard, but hey, a drink’s a drink, isn’t it.

Beverages in hand, Wonsik seems not to know what to say, and Taekwoon’s never been quite a sparkling conversationalist himself, so he ends up studying the sleepy slope of Wonsik’s eyes. His fingertips drum anxiously into the sides of his mug of coffee, the steam filling his nose, aromatic and delicious, the best thing he’s had near him in a long time (except, he adds privately, for Wonsik himself).

“Can I ask you a question?” Wonsik interjects, when the silence seems to grow too loud. Taekwoon nods his assent, sipping on his drink slowly. “That day when you helped me, did you follow me to my drop-off point?” Again, Taekwoon nods. Wonsik squints, not unkindly, mouth wrapped around the lip of the bottle in his hand as he thinks on this. “Why?”

Taekwoon hums, tilting his head, mouth pursing into an unserious sort of line. Then he answers, in the most sincere voice he can, “In case something else happened.”

Wonsik pretends not to be pleased at this, puts on a farce of a frown, but the tips of his ears show the telltale colour of bridled joy.

Talk comes easier after that, their meals arriving and they eating in starts and stops. Taekwoon telling in halting sentences about the planets he’s visited since the last time they’d seen one another. Even more cautiously does he speak of Hakyeon. “He’s...a friend,” he mumbles, staring down at the fork in his hand. “And he usually contacts me once a week. But he hasn’t since the last time I saw him. Not long after I saw you.”

“Where would he be?” Wonsik asks once he’s finished with a mouthful of chunks of potato and corn and pepper.

“He said he would be with someone. That, um. That he’s been with someone for a little while now. But I don’t know who it is.”

Wonsik takes a bite, ruminating on this. “It can’t be hard to find him. Just trace his last communication. If he’s been with someone for any amount of time, it’ll lead back to that ship.”

Taekwoon lights up a bit -- he hadn’t thought of this before, for whatever reason. A tiny, slow smile spreads over his face. “Let’s finish eating and we’ll go to my ship, and you can show me what you mean.”

* * *

Hakyeon wakes up to the sound of his lover and his lover’s lover arguing. He has no idea as to what they’re arguing about -- probably has something to do with Jaehwan not wanting to be wrong and Sanghyuk irrefutably proving to him that he is -- and he’s really not in the mood to deal with them so soon after opening his eyes. Despite his best efforts not to get too hooked on the stuff, he’s finding that he craves what Jaehwan calls coffee, black stuff in a heavy cup that would probably burn going down a normal being’s throat. He stares at the ceiling for a long few minutes, trying to decide whether or not getting up and potentially being thrust in the middle of Sanghyuk’s and Jaehwan’s argument is worth getting coffee.

In the end, the decision is made for him, because he feels the minute shifts of Jaehwan setting their ship to autopilot, a few moments’ pause, and then the bay doors sliding open as Jaehwan enters the bunker. He climbs into the giant bed he usually shares with both Hakyeon and Sanghyuk, clearly sulking, and wraps himself around Hakyeon, limbs entangling with his own. Hakyeon sighs, the last of sleepiness leaving him with the exhale, and reaches up and around to thread his fingers through Jaehwan’s hair.

“What happened?” he asks in his best attempt at a sleepy mumble.

“Tried to say I couldn’t make it through that nebulous cloud we were talking about last night,” Jaehwan sniffs, arms curling tighter around Hakyeon’s middle, chin resting in the crook of his neck. “I can make it through anything.”

He’s probably being overdramatic for the sake of attention, something with which Hakyeon isn’t entirely familiar but has come to expect from his sort-of boyfriend. That being said, it doesn’t sound much outside the realm of possibility for Sanghyuk and his intense need to be right about everything. Granted, the kid is a literal genius -- his people, Gieprans, like learning more than they like living, according to Hakyeon’s people -- but that doesn’t mean he has to be… (how would Jaehwan say…) a dick.

A few minutes pass like this, Jaehwan snuggling closer. When Hakyeon asks about the sudden closeness despite the fact that Jaehwan usually burns himself on Hakyeon’s star-orange skin, he says he’s cold, that Hakyeon’s the only thing that keeps him warm in the heartless, freezing void of outer space, and now Hakyeon knows Jaehwan is _definitely_ being dramatic.

Sanghyuk enters, and silhouetted against the muted light flickering behind him he appears to glow a faint red, just a few shades off Hakyeon’s own skin tone. “Are you done yet?” he asks in that matter-of-fact voice of his, the one that Hakyeon has learned to, at the very least, tolerate since they met several months ago.

Jaehwan doesn’t say anything, nestles in, kissing the soft spot between Hakyeon’s shoulderblades. Hakyeon really, really, _really_ does not feel like mediating this dispute. He shifts, wriggles, forces his way out of Jaehwan’s grasp. “You two need to make up so that I can get out of bed,” he says in his most authorative tone. Suddenly remembering his manners, he tacks on, “Please.”

If at all possible, Jaehwan seems to sulk more, but crawls out of bed nonetheless, and both he and Sanghyuk exit the bedroom, hand in hand and giving one another sideways stares. Hakyeon watches as they go, then swings his everlong legs over the edge of the bed, loathe to leave the spot that still smells of Jaehwan and himself even though he knows he probably should.

There are no stars bright enough to sustain him in space, as light does not travel the way it does through the atmosphere of his home planet. Lately he’s been living off coffee and the occasional visit to a small sun in a system nearby, though it’s never quite the juice he needs to keep himself going the way he’s used to. He gets more tired lately, and from time to time he turns a little redder, cools off a little more. The last few nights it’s gotten to where even Jaehwan notices, asks him if he feels alright.

He doesn’t, but they’re on course for a star that will fix him right up. Thank the heavens that Sanghyuk has more work to do, studying the effects of different stars on their systems’ basic functions.

Hakyeon pauses in the middle of rustling through the closet. Has he accumulated a debt to _Sanghyuk_ , of all people? Perish the thought.

After dressing himself -- he can’t exactly go around with all his innards hanging out, after all, no matter how ‘cool’ Jaehwan thinks it is when Hakyeon’s heartbeat speeds up, turns a deep shade of blue -- Hakyeon pads to the kitchen and starts himself a pot of coffee, still only halfway familiar with the way in which the machine works. He ends up making a mess all over the countertop, grounds and water running together in a mishmash that he can’t quite decipher.

Some old rock music is playing throughout the craft, the sort he’d never heard until he met Jaehwan; he and Sanghyuk are sitting in the cockpit, singing along, Jaehwan in the broken syllables of a language he clearly doesn’t speak, and Sanghyuk with perfect accuracy. Hakyeon, for his part, tries his hardest not to roll his eyes, a mannerism he didn’t have all that long ago.

“Hey, you’re up.” Jaehwan has become himself once again, and judging by the fact that Sanghyuk’s legs are draped over Jaehwan’s lap, they’ve made up, as Hakyeon wanted. “Come sit with us.”

Hakyeon shakes his head. It’s not that he doesn’t want to spend time with Jaehwan; on the contrary, the more scientific research they do these days the more he wants to cling to his lover, hold him close, be...possessive? Is that the right word? It’s not a feeling with which he’s particularly familiar, and it’s more than a little uncomfortable, but here he is.

Sanghyuk makes that face, the one he always does when Hakyeon is around, as if he’s only just realised that there are more beings than himself on the ship. Hakyeon’s heart glows faint blue through the trappings of his clothes; he can’t help the racing it does, albeit a race of something closer to anger rather than anything else. He loves travelling, loves this craft, loves seeing planets outside his own -- loves, most of all, feeling _safe_ from the things that are out to get him.

He does not, however, love Sanghyuk. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t even _like_ Sanghyuk, and it shows. Apparently this is the greatest disappointment in Jaehwan’s life; Hakyeon is reminded of this when Jaehwan’s face falls, gaze dropping to a spot between his own chair and Hakyeon’s feet.

The coffee machine beeps, rescuing Hakyeon from having to explain the glow of his heart with a lie for what must be a billionth time. It isn’t until he’s got one of those heavy handled cups between his hands that he feels ready to really deal with anything.

Over the speakers, the music gets louder, but there isn’t any more singing.

Suddenly Hakyeon’s skin is heating like he’s got a ton of energy, and he’s got that itch along his back, the one that says the walls are closing in and someone’s watching him -- a sixth sense he’s developed over the past seventy-five Earth years (give or take) of running for his life. He has to get out, and he has to do it without either alarming Jaehwan or owing him an explanation of any kind.

He goes to the telecommunicator, sends a quick emergency transmission to Taekwoon telling him they need to meet up on Furia as soon as possible. Privately he’s hoping that Taekwoon isn’t docked with whoever it is that’s got his attention lately; Hakyeon hasn’t felt the need to communicate with him as a result, hoping that a little distance will force Taekwoon to get out, socialise with this unnamed individual.

Now’s a desperate time, though -- they’re coming for him, and he knows it.

The third eye, aqua and filled with a billion silver stars, flickers open. Jaehwan tries to stop him as he carves a path to the exit bay just a few rooms over, and even Sanghyuk protests when he climbs into one of the emergency pods, setting a course for Furia, as always.

 _An emergency pod doesn’t leave any trace back to its ship of origin,_ Hakyeon thinks in Jaehwan’s voice, in Taekwoon’s voice, in someone else’s voice from long, long ago. He doesn’t need them finding Jaehwan, doesn’t need anyone finding where he’s been hiding the past however long.

As the pod is shot from its cradle in the exit bay and rocketed along a faintly maroon swath of stars and nebula, Hakyeon prays to everything in which he doesn’t believe that the one person he truly loves in all this beautiful and damned universe isn’t harmed because of him.

* * *

Their date (if it can be called a date, that is, seeing as neither of them has had the guts to ask that that’s probably what it is at this point) is cut short rather abruptly, Taekwoon receiving an emergency hail to the communicator he wears around his neck, dangling loosely even as they’re already on the way back to his ship. One of the older models of comm, Wonsik notes, an eyebrow raised as the inside of Taekwoon’s shirt lights up a pale peridot that blinks, urgent. He apologises in that feather-light voice of his, and for some reason Wonsik is just positive that he won’t see Taekwoon again for a long time after this.

Besides, most first dates end with first kisses, and Wonsik hasn’t claimed his.

So, despite his better judgment, Wonsik follows Taekwoon. One questionable turn deserves another, he reasons, boarding his craft just a few minutes after Taekwoon does his own.

Except, shit, that old thing doesn’t really know how to go (Wonsik determines that the next time they spend time together it’ll be him showing off all his skills when it comes to upgrading and illegally modifying older models of craft) and he’s stuck sort of drifting in space, trying not to look like a stalker, even though he knows it’s impossible.

The journey isn’t a long one, their destination in the next star system, but even still, Wonsik feels it takes a thousand years, having anticipated some kind of high-speed chase in order to keep up with Taekwoon. He’s anxious to get that first kiss, though, so despite his boredom with the act of following, he’ll keep it up to the end.

Taekwoon’s apparently ancient ship docks on a nothing planet the likes of which Wonsik is familiar, even if he hasn’t been to this one in particular. The only location of note, according to Wonsik’s scans of the surface of the planet, is a diner, run by robots. God help him, but he doesn’t want to be that obvious so as to land at or around the only building on the planet. So he turns off his engines, keeps life support on, and hovers there, in orbit, watching, waiting.

Hours go by, Wonsik entertaining himself by downloading a new simulation to his station and remembering that he absolutely despises simulations. The game is about escaping warlords before they take you back to their planet, which is a good summary of practically every popular simulation out there. His thoughts drift, focusing on the way Taekwoon’s profile looked, silhouetted by faintly green light, the way he smiled when Wonsik cracked a particularly bad joke, the way his nose wrinkled up in a delighted way when he tasted his coffee.

It’s because of this distraction of the mind that it’s a few moments before Wonsik notices motion on his sensors of the planet’s outer spheres, and decides that he needs to get his ass in gear. Taekwoon is leaving, but from a different spot than he had arrived -- an unorthodox move, one that, one a more populated planet, would get him in trouble, would probably get Wonsik in trouble.

The only difference between arriving and leaving, location aside, is that Taekwoon’s craft is going about three times as fast as it had been when he’d landed almost half an earth day ago. Shit. Wonsik kicks his own engines into high gear, attempting to keep up and failing as miserably as he had at following quietly. (He isn’t cut out for chases, he thinks, dejected. He’s a fucking delivery boy.)

When he’s at a safe speed, within a safe distance, Wonsik’s radar pings, and he lifts his head (having been resting his embarrassedly warm forehead on the cool metal of his control panel) to see exactly what it is that has caught his sensors’ attention.

A fucking Estothan warship.

His heart stops for a long moment, and only when he’s sure he must be dreaming does he find within him the ability to move. He flicks on his comm channels, knowing that either he’s about to hear the voice of the race intent on killing him, or he’s about to get yelled at for following someone when he shouldn’t have.

Strangely, his comm board is silent.

Shit. Death comes quietly, he supposes.

When his heart restarts and behaves the way it’s meant to, he’s quick to start frantically checking readouts of his own stats, those of the craft behind him, those of the one in front of him, and figuring his own chances of survival, which, at this point of pure panic, are slim to none. At least in his mind. Thankfully, the data deigns that today is his day -- the warship is quite a distance behind him, and he’s close enough to Taekwoon that he’s fairly certain he’ll be able to outrun them both, securing safety for himself, even if it’s _only_ himself.

But those same images of just a short while before, of Taekwoon’s features in soft green profile, of the shape of his smile as he talks about a nephew back home, flood Wonsik’s mind, and he realises that abandoning this guy he kind of likes is not the best thing to do if he wants that _damn_ first kiss.

So he sets his course: Follow Taekwoon.

* * *

Hakyeon, for all his supposed inability to learn other languages, sure does swear a lot. In Korean, at that, something Taekwoon hadn’t known him capable of doing until this exact moment. He makes a mental note to ask where that came from. A steady stream of noise is coming from his friend even as Taekwoon is busy monitoring the movements of the ship, just a few thousand Q behind, close enough to cause reasonable anxiety, far enough that Taekwoon has decent hope of escaping.

Except, y’know, there’s something close by. Some _one_ close by.

Despite the urge to keep himself private, unexposed, unfollowable, something tells Taekwoon that it would be in his best interest to lock onto the signal of the someone close by, figure out whether or not they can -- or should -- be spared, should this turn into what Hakyeon seems to believe it will. So he does, flips the switches in his comm panels that make his signals open, and to his surprise, whoever it is has already figured out a way to follow him.

It can only be one person. Taekwoon curses his luck.

Hakyeon breaks from his decidedly filthy string of chatter to fix his gaze on the radar, on the two specks of motion, one enormous, one barely a blip. “What’s that?” he asks in a voice about an octave higher than his normal one. “What is that, Taekwoon, who is that? Is someone else here?” His hot, hot hands are curled around the crook of Taekwoon’s elbow, holding so tight that Taekwoon is sure there will be burn scars later, but it doesn’t matter. He’s busy dispatching one of those generic communications, a warning -- _Stay away. This is an unsafe venture._

Wonsik, apparently, does not believe in unsafe, something that Taekwoon wouldn’t have believed about him were he not bearing witness to it right now.

His attempts at warding off their tailgater a failure, Taekwoon increases speed. Unfortunately, so does that enormous warship. Thank god neither he nor Hakyeon can see it, elsewise their anxiety might multiply tenfold. The only thing either of them know about it is that it’s huge, with huge guns.

As this occurs to him, the ship’s shields flicker, and a warning light dings on, flitting across his command console, letting him know that his outermost layer of protection has taken significant damage. Taekwoon tightens his knuckles around the forward shift of his control panel, pushes it forward slowly, deliberately, trying his best to shake the ship without shaking Wonsik, lest he be abandoned to the clutches of this...this thing, this travesty, this source of death and destruction without cause.

Entire galaxies fly by, Hakyeon holding his breath the whole time, having drawn in on himself and wrapped his arms around his legs. Another blow lands, this one a laser, completely removing Taekwoon’s craft of its exoshield, leaving him with only the endolayer which, in this context, is completely useless.

They might die, he thinks, despondent, even as he continues to move forward, tries to escape.

Through the open channels, Taekwoon can hear the sound of a laser being fired, of a string of filthy, fearful words, and he knows, at least, that Wonsik has made it this far, that he’s keeping up.

Even still, Taekwoon’s heart finds no rest in knowing that this man, a relative stranger with a handsome smile and endless amounts of gratitude for even the smallest things, is in danger, and so he presses forward. Setting his shields to regeneration mode, he takes to evasive maneuvers, anxious to get out of the way, anxious as to what might happen should he and Hakyeon take another hit.

Another sound of charging, of firing, fills the tinny speakers of his ancient comm system. A glance out the back bay windows show him that despite any and all progress, his craft is directly in the line of fire of the warship, gaining slowly but surely on him. The turrets at its forefront gleam with bright neon, with the threat of death, and Taekwoon can do little more than brace for impact, reaching over and taking Hakyeon’s forearm under his hand.

Just then, a beam of bright light shifts past them, ricocheting and twirling beyond their craft and keeping up with them easily. Wonsik sits at the command console, much to Taekwoon’s great dismay -- he’d still been holding out hope that he’d been wrong -- and flashes one of those cheesy winks that one sees in action films. He keeps this up, face lit up with joy but eyes dim with fear, zigging and zagging, swaying to and fro, before catching a laser so hard that his ship trembles on its course. Wonsik’s ship makes its way past Taekwoon’s in the wobbliest way, and he’s panicking, sending another comm, this one of his own devising.

“Wonsik,” he says, sternly, into the microphone, “this isn’t a game. They’re going to kill us. They’ll kill you too.”

Hakyeon shrieks as he looks out the back bay of the ship, realising that his pursuers are drawing ever nearer. “They’re going to kill us,” he repeats, that same wavering note of dread filling the entirety of his voice. His heart is bright blue and visible through his clothes, going a million miles a second, and Taekwoon, his eyes diverted to that spot in particular, almost loses himself in the movement of it, finding it decidedly more soothing than their present situation.

Then Wonsik’s ship takes another hit, his craft teetering dangerously, and the time to act is upon them. Taekwoon elbows Hakyeon carefully in his burning-hot ribs, tells him to take over the controls, keep up acceleration, and then gets up from his chair. There’s no way in the galaxy that a delivery craft can take even one hit and survive, but Wonsik’s has taken two, and though he’s clearly in rough shape, even to someone who doesn’t know anything about travelcraft, he’s doing a lot better than Taekwoon had initially thought he would be. Taekwoon’s in the transport bay, opening his channels. The communicator around his neck is a bright green, glowing against his chest; he lifts it to his mouth.

“Wonsik,” he says, trying his best to keep calm only to have his voice crack in the middle. His free hand is pressing buttons, opening hatches, securing channels. “I need you to get to your transporter. I’ll take you on. We’re going to make it out of here, my shields are regenerating right now, but if you take even a little more damage you’re going to lose it. Please. I know you don’t know me that well,” and here his voice breaks again, “but please trust me. I want to keep you safe.”

There is no response for a long while, Taekwoon holding his breath even as he goes back to his pilot’s chair, relieving a screaming, trembling Hakyeon of the controls and continuing as if no interruption had taken place. But then that familiar, low buzz of someone boarding rings in Taekwoon’s ears, and his lungs nearly explode with the utter relief of inhaling.

Wonsik is a mess, of course; his ship hasn’t gone down yet, but it’s on its merry way, spiraling off into another direction entirely, laser-created flames licking at its windshield on the way down. Hopefully it crashes on some asteroid and not a planet. His hair is askew, one of the elbows of his shirt has been ripped open, he’s covered in dust from transport and, most of all, he looks terrified.

They’re not out of the woods yet, though.

Before he gets a chance to say anything in an attempt to be comforting, the command console warns him that the shields are still only at fifty percent strength. Hakyeon’s screaming has subsided, turned into a mournful wail as he grips the seat in which he is firmly planted so tight that smoke rises from the fabric, and this must be the strangest thing Wonsik has seen today, Estothan warships aside.

Taekwoon turns his attention from the new passenger aboard his ship to the controls sitting before him, focusing again on acceleration. He’s almost at critical speed, almost, so close...

“Hey,” Wonsik murmurs in the hoarsest voice Taekwoon thinks he’s ever heard, suddenly standing between them, looking from Hakyeon’s blue-flushed face to Taekwoon’s, beaded with perspiration and more than likely very, very solemn.

“We owe you an explanation,” Taekwoon says in his feathery voice, attempting to keep casual but fixed, “but we can’t right now. We have to get out of here.”

Nodding dumbly, Wonsik reaches out and splays his palms along the flat surface of the controls. He flips a few extraneous switches, the purposes of which Taekwoon has long since forgotten in a lifetime thus far of voyaging. There’s a pause, and then a couple new lights blink on. Then the ship is moving quicker, quicker, hits crit, and they’re off, propulsing forward at a speed imperceivable by most people, Earth or not. The Estothan ship behind them disappears into a tiny speck, no bigger than a bug on a window, and everyone suddenly sighs the exact same sigh.

Hakyeon, being Hakyeon, speaks first. “I’ll tell you everything.”

Taekwoon, being Taekwoon, agrees with a low hum, turns his eyes back to the stars, catching what few nebulae he can at this velocity.

Wonsik, being Wonsik, forces a little smile, runs his fingers through his hair, resetting it as best he can.

* * *

_I’m from Estoth. Born and raised. Well, kind of raised._

_I know what it sounds like. Like I’m hungry for war and destruction. Like nothing is important to me except bloodshed. Like no one wants to be anywhere near me. I’m looking at you now and you’ve got that look, like you’re afraid of me, and you don’t have to be, but I understand completely why you are._

_Let me tell you a few things about Estoth you probably don’t know, before I tell you anything else._

_First of all, we have five suns in our system. About three of them are close enough to us that we get power from them. There is no darkness where I’m from. If you listen to old stories we sometimes tell each other on the battlefield, you’ll know that we didn’t know what a shadow was until some traveller asked us why we didn’t have any. With that idea in mind, we tried to make our own darkness._

_Second, because of all the suns, we don’t run the way most of you Earth people do. Energy-wise, I mean. We feed off all the light that comes to our planet. Sometimes I honestly think that it’s because we’re always so hot -- I mean, look at me, I’m literally made of fire -- that we make war the way that we do. What’s that thing you Earthlings say… hot-blooded? Boiling, even? That’s us. Or it would be if we needed something so basic as blood._

_Third, my ancestors, about a few thousand years ago, used to be burnt black, like volcanic glass. Hard to break, easy to make weapons of. I guess we kind of adapted to what we had. That’s why I look so tired -- there aren’t many systems with that much light. People were afraid of us. Everyone, really. I guess because we reminded them of the endless void, where even starlight couldn’t reach._

_When you’re raised on Estoth, there aren’t really a lot of questions about who you are or what you’re going to do with your life or what you believe. Pretty much all of us think the same. It’s boring, in a sense, but fulfilling to a lot of us, not having to ask the big questions everyone else does. Unfortunately, the answers are all the same. “You’re a soldier. You fight. You kill. You conquer. If you don’t, you die.”_

_Look at me. I know you don’t want to, you keep clenching and unclenching your fists like you’re scared, but look at me, really. Do I look like one of those people?_

_Even when I was a child, barely developed from the painful process of birth -- oh, yes, don’t make that face, we’re completely aware of our own birth, and it’s that kind of hurt that really makes warriors out of us -- my littermates teased me for being so small, so quick to smile, so happy to help. They thought I was weak, and maybe I was. ‘Are you sure you’re not a Birthmother?’ they would ask me with that serious look on their face, the same one you’ve got on right now. ‘Are you sure you’re one of us?’_

_And the thing is, I wasn’t sure. I was more comfortable around Birthmothers than anyone else. But they couldn’t keep me forever, no matter how much they wanted to. So they sent me to training with fear in their eyes, and the only memory I have of them on that day is their affections, their hands all over my body, wishing good fortune upon me._

_The thing is, though, Wonsik -- that’s your name, isn’t it? -- the thing is that there’s a strength to being soft that no one realises, where I’m from. It’s hard to be soft when everyone else around you is hard as the obsidian from which they came. It’s hard to love when all you’re taught is hate. It’s hard to want to make peace when war is the only thing you’re given as an objective._

_So I watched, and I waited, and I learned._

_I wasn’t much of a warrior until I turned about seventy, and even then no cell wanted me. Everyone knew about the reputation I had then, and they were afraid that I would suddenly go back to being the soft person I’d grown up as. So I ended up working requisition, finding new and improved weapons for my people, so that they could better fight, kill, and conquer. I was...strangely good at it, at finding the most efficient ways to murder. No, I’m not proud of it. Don’t do that strange thing with your… um… yes, your nose, thank you, Taekwoon. But it was because of my skill in my field that I finally got my opportunity to escape._

_I was granted a temporary leave from my post so that I could go observe some of my finds in action. It was only supposed to be… well, hm… a few cycles. No more than a week in your human time. But we got stuck there, our siege having gone not quite as well as we’d have liked._

_It’s funny, actually, that planet… Mm. I know someone now who lived there long after we did what we did. It wasn’t so long ago that I got away, but it was longer than I remember, I guess._

_Anyway, we got stuck, for lack of a better term, trapped in the middle of a battle that was actually a battle. A rescue ship came for me and the people like me -- not soldiers or officers, just civilians with titles on their names -- and I… I saw my chance. Though I didn’t have much of a taste for violence, I still knew the things I was supposed to know. So I shattered the clear exoskeleton of the pilot of the rescue craft, watched his white-hot insides leak from his chest cavity, and I stole the ship._

_No, they didn’t like it at all. They were actually very angry. There was a chase not unlike the one you were just part of, but on a much bigger scale. Thankfully, back then, our radar systems weren’t as advanced as they are now, so I was able to slip between them and move with them until they realised that they were actually chasing nothing. When they departed to go look for me -- as if I’d be stupid enough to go home! -- I got as close as Estoth’s gravitational pull before breaking from them. I still don’t know how they didn’t notice me. I don’t really believe in miracles, but I believe in that one with everything I have._

_Oh, right. You humans are so impatient, probably because you don’t have much time. You want to know about what the chase just now was about? Well...they still remember me. It’s been seventy-five of your years, and they still remember, still send out scouts in search of me._

_I don’t talk to anyone from my planet who knew me back then -- anyone who was close to me ended up executed, my traitorous acts apparently a poison that could have affected everyone I knew -- but I know I’m still considered a criminal of war. My life now is more about staying alive, and staying away from them, than it is about actually living._

_Look at me. Really_ look _at me. Do I look like I belong with my head on a stick, or mounted on someone’s killing room wall?_

_In any case, I spend a lot of time outrunning them. It’s kind of an extra sense of mine. I went to a doctor on a different world, years ago, and he taught me to develop and strengthen this third eye implant, so that I could always be aware of them coming after me. Now, when it opens, when I feel them nearby, I just… go._

_I never meant for anyone to get hurt. No, Taekwoon, not even pretending to be brave will get me to change my mind._

_You’re still scared of me. That’s fine. I would probably also be scared of someone who had confessed to murder. But I’m not that person just because I’m from Estoth. Please keep that in mind when we talk in the future._

* * *

“Where is Hakyeon?” Jaehwan is padding around in sock feet, that same old soundtrack playing softly through the ship’s speakers. When he stops in the bunk room doorway, frame pressed against its metal jaws, his honey eyes are soft, concerned, even as he traces over the shapes of Sanghyuk’s face, his hair, his shoulders with definitive fondness. Nothing cuter than a genius alien dude in your bed, taking notes on...whatever it is he’s always taking notes on. A diary? He considers it, then decides this boyfriend isn’t sensitive journaling material. Probably science. Boo.

Sanghyuk looks up from a lined notebook -- he’s actually _writing_ in hanja, Jaehwan thinks, chest swelling up with pride, nevermind that he hasn’t taught his boyfriend anything about writing Earth-based languages -- with the most bored expression he possibly can. “He left yesterday, don’t you remember?”

“I remember.” Jaehwan’s full lips fill out when he pouts, something that Sanghyuk finds endearing, judging by the slightly quirk in his naked brow. “But usually when he goes to...wherever he’s going, he takes the expedition pod, not the escape pod.”

Sanghyuk is already back to writing, stifling a yawn, a gesture of pure mockery -- he never yawned when he first moved onto this ship. “Maybe he made a mistake?”

Jaehwan’s pout becomes a serious frown. “Hakyeon doesn’t make mistakes.”

Suddenly that book of Sanghyuk’s is sitting, cover-side-up and all akimbo, on the floor of the bedroom, and Sanghyuk is climbing from the bed, crossing the space between them. “You worry too much about him, hyung,” he says in that saccharine voice of his, the one reserved for when Sanghyuk knows he’s treading on thin ice and kind of enjoying it. He even calls Jaehwan ‘hyung,’ something he definitely didn’t know to do when he and Jaehwan started seeing each other. His long, pink arms fit around Jaehwan’s neck, holding him close. “He’s older than both of us put together. He can take care of himself.”

And yeah, Sanghyuk is probably right. Hakyeon seems pretty good at taking care of himself -- for fuck’s sake, he’s somewhere in the neighbourhood of two hundred years old; someone doesn’t get to be that age without knowing a thing or two about surviving -- but that doesn’t mean Jaehwan doesn’t _worry_. Especially when Sanghyuk’s got that face like he wants, wants, _wants_ something, and that something he wants is more than likely for Hakyeon to stay away longer.

He doesn’t pretend to understand the animosity between his two lovers, nor does he give any kind of formal recognition to the awkwardness it occasionally makes on his ship, where he lives and lets them live, damnit. Instead, he just sort of plays along with it, lets it happen. More often than not it works out to his advantage -- his mother, a native of the planet Daetis, has passed on to him the genes that make it necessary for him to seek physical comfort in others -- and he has to snuggle one of them until they feel better about whatever fight they’d been in. But sometimes it just sort of...drains everyone aboard.

Had Sanghyuk and Hakyeon fought, before the elder left yesterday? Jaehwan doesn’t remember a lot about their interaction, though now he wishes he did. If so, that could explain why he’s been gone so long. Even still, he’s made queasy at the notion that Hakyeon, who’s been with him for a year, would be so...so inconsiderate as to not send a comm. It’s not _like him_.

So even though Sanghyuk’s doing that thing where he makes what he thinks are flirtatious faces -- Jaehwan can’t help but find himself endeared to them in nine cases out of ten -- and holding him close and getting dangerously close to the sensitive skin of his ears with that wicked mouth of his, Jaehwan pushes his boyfriend away in favour of sitting down at the comm panel and contacting Hakyeon.

There’s no answer, of course, because why would there be? But Jaehwan leaves a message anyhow, all cheer and happiness and smiles, mostly out of spite -- Sanghyuk is making gagging noises from the bunk room, and Jaehwan wants to noogie him into submission but can’t without interrupting himself.

“I love you, Hakyeon,” he finishes, and presses ‘send’.

The immediate response startles Jaehwan.

_This user is outside a known star system._

Jaehwan’s smile slips right off his face. Sanghyuk stops his teasing, comes and sits at the comm panel with him.

“What’s that mean?” Jaehwan asks no one at all, as if he doesn’t already know what it means.

“Hakyeon is lost.” There’s no sweetness to it as there would have been just moments ago. Even Sanghyuk is completely dumbfounded.

* * *

“What do you mean we’re lost,” Hakyeon deadpans, his skin cooling until his orange dims. He’s mostly gotten over the hysterics that had come with their little encounter with potential death, though a little quibble here and there makes its way into his voice. “Do you even know what lost is, Taekwoon.”

“I do,” Taekwoon says softly, “and we’re lost.”

If those aforementioned hysterics have gone anywhere, it’s to Wonsik, who apparently doesn’t do lost very well. “There’s no way,” he warbles, head in his hands and elbows on his knees. “There’s no way. We’re gonna die out here, aren’t we? That warship should’ve killed me, not being _lost_ in _space_ with a fucking _alien murderer_.”

Hakyeon, alarmingly calm, gives Wonsik a very serious look. “I’m not an alien murderer,” he points out, and Taekwoon knows he would probably sound rather indignant at the accusation were he not drained of any and all emotion by his earlier episode. “And we might be lost, but Taekwoon is an excellent navigator. He’s gotten me lost and then found about a dozen and a half times.”

Flushing at the compliment, Taekwoon turns his attention from the gentle bickering (gentle in that Hakyeon balances Wonsik in a rather interesting way) and to the charts splayed out on his various command console screens. There’s got to be a way out of this. To one direction is a large splaying of clouds, sprayed thickly with blankets of stars and planetoids and debris, impossible to maneuver without prior knowledge of the area. That’s out. In the opposite direction is a quick-moving meteorite field, careening its way through nothingness, not currently a threat but promising to be one should they move too far in its way. That’s also out. Behind them is nothing, though one would be safe to assume that to move backward after narrowly escaping death would be inviting it back in.

The only direction in which to go would be forward, where nothingness stretches vast and endless, sure to further trigger Wonsik’s anxiety. Taekwoon’s heart leaps at the thought. He would love to be the first person to chart out this system, should that be what it is.

According to his coordinates, cross-referenced with his radar, they’re not far from a few ships drifting, probably just parked and enjoying the sights. The meteors, after all, make a fairly lovely view, when the stars to their other side manage to catch their light and reflect them back upon a viewer.

Taekwoon thinks of home, and of laying in his own backyard, and of staring up at four moons making their way through the sky in rapid succession…

But then he remembers his father’s voice, calling him inside, and he shakes away the memory entirely, more comfortable in being lost than in being found.

Hakyeon, for all his supposed inability to make peace, has calmed Wonsik somewhat, to the point that the little knot between his brows has eased, that he has let go of the fists he had been making atop his own knees. He still seems distressed, of course, because what normal human being wouldn’t be distressed by the notion of being lost in space? But when Taekwoon studies his face a long moment, Wonsik cracks the tiniest of smiles, and Taekwoon’s previously racing thoughts come to a complete halt.

“Hakyeon, can you…” Taekwoon begins, unsure as to how he could possibly ask his best friend to _leave him alone for a minute_.

But he doesn’t need to be told, rises, pats Wonsik on the shoulder. “I should go check on the transport room,” he says, “make sure neither of you made a mess in there while you were playing adventurer.” He sounds like a parent, and for all intents and purposes he could be, probably should be. Then he disappears into the next room, the sliding metal doors shinking shut behind him.

Wonsik and Taekwoon are alone, and it’s like they never left Cagripe 42, like they’re just resuming after a brief pause. Wonsik’s chair whirs quietly as he rolls closer, til their knees touch, til Taekwoon can trace the shape of his lips with a fingertip.

“You followed me,” he says, feather-light, soft as down.

“You followed me first,” Wonsik points out in a mumble, careful not to move too much in speaking as his eyes slowly flutter closed, clearly enjoying the touch at his lips. “I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”

And it’s not Taekwoon’s idea, never would be, but something in him sort of pings, the way his star charts do when he’s entering uncharted territory. Wonsik’s hands, rough, slightly calloused, find Taekwoon’s cheeks, thumb over the soft spaces just beneath his eyes, and then draw him in til he’s bent in on himself just a bit, and presses their foreheads together.

“And,” Wonsik whispers soon as Taekwoon’s dropped his hand into his lap, “I didn’t get to kiss you goodbye.”

Taekwoon’s heart skips twice -- once for the words, once for the ghost of a kiss Wonsik brushes against his mouth.

They stay like this, Taekwoon’s palms finding the peek of skin under the hem of Wonsik’s work shirt and relishing in the warmth of his skin against his own cold fingers, lips moving in perfect time, whispers of kisses that slowly, naturally turn into something more daring, more assuming. Time, immeasurable in an unknown place anyway, becomes irrelevant, is told only in the number of kisses they steal from one another, in the way one’s heartbeat quickens while the other slows, in the little brushes of shin to shin or forearm to elbow.

It is only when they are interrupted that either of them feel the faint tingles of one another’s lips on their own. Hakyeon reemerges from the transport dock with a loud clang, dropping some cleaning implement or another onto the floor in what appears to be feigned shock upon discovering them.

“ _That’s_ why you wanted me to leave?” And Hakyeon is nothing in this moment if not a clever grin, a look that says he and Taekwoon have much to discuss.

Taekwoon, already pink from being touched so much, looks at the floor, takes Wonsik’s hand in his own and gives it a squeeze, though whether he’s reassuring himself or someone else, he doesn’t really know.

* * *

A comm from Hakyeon blinks the screen to life, a high-pitched sound accompanying it.

Jaehwan perks, having long since halfway dozed off to the sounds of Sanghyuk’s scratching out works on paper coupled with the low hum of the engines of his ship suspended in motion. If Hakyeon is communicating, it must mean he’s not lost anymore. All the better! Privately, Jaehwan misses his boyfriend -- he loves Sanghyuk, in a sense, but they end up arguing quite a bit, and it feels worse when there’s no buffer to come between them.

The comm, however, isn’t one of those voice messages of which Hakyeon is so fond -- Jaehwan’s face falls when he realises it -- but merely a set of coordinates and a quick message. _We’re not in danger, we just got lost. Come meet us? ♥_

“Saa~anghyuk,” Jaehwan singsongs, putting on his cutest face and tucking his balled fists beneath his chin. Sanghyuk looks up with that certain curiosity in his eyes, the sort he reserves for Jaehwan and only Jaehwan. “Hakyeonnie told us where he’s been hiding! Can we go get him?”

Sanghyuk’s face turns sulky -- a feat, considering he doesn’t have any eyebrows to show how serious he is. He reaches up, tugs at a lock of his own unkempt hair. “Do we have to?”

At this, Jaehwan deflates completely, flopping onto folded arms, wrapped around his drawn-up knees. “Yes, we have to,” he insists darkly, “we can’t just leave him...wherever he is.”

“Where is he?” Sanghyuk questions, tapping a fingertip to the blunt tip of his own nose.

Jaehwan is already typing in the coordinates given to him so that the navigator can calculate the route. Surprisingly, they’re not that far apart -- only a single star system between their current location and Destriteria, the place to which Hakyeon has directed them. He explains as much to Sanghyuk, who reluctantly agrees that they should _probably_ go pick up the third member of their crew.

Elated, Jaehwan crawls into Sanghyuk’s lap, kisses the curve of his shoulder, thanks him a hundred times. They both pretend not to notice Jaehwan accidentally stealing energy from Sanghyuk’s embrace.

The journey takes a few hours. They end up on a gaseous planet the likes of which Sanghyuk can’t even walk, so when their ship parts the clouds he opts for going to bed in the interest of keeping himself alive and well. (Much to Jaehwan’s dismay, his offers to let Sanghyuk borrow a suit that would make visiting the planet’s surface possible go ignored.) So Jaehwan goes alone, and despite the fact that he doesn’t believe his Hakyeon would make friends with anyone unsavoury, he finds himself a little nervous to meet someone who’s probably known Hakyeon a dozen times longer than he himself has.

He docks and disembarks, and upon exiting his craft finds himself among absolute throngs of people in the shape of amorphous gels with long, thin appendages, rolling their slow but merry way down various piers and connections, shouting out to travelling family members as they leave commercial ships. There is happiness in the air here, and Jaehwan absorbs it well, drinking in the joy as these blobs of a race -- their name? Their name? He can’t recall -- embrace one another with watery, almost unformed limbs.

By contrast, Hakyeon and his companions seem almost too solid, as if Jaehwan’s eyes haven’t adjusted properly to the light upon seeing them. Even still, the sight of Hakyeon, all lit up and excited, his cheeks flickering the hot shade of blue they do when Jaehwan is around. With Hakyeon are two… humans (? It’s rude to assume someone’s race, Jaehwan thinks, but they at least _look_ vaguely humanoid) holding hands, fingers laced, one of whom is dark-haired and looks very pleased to see the one whose hand he’s holding, while the other, blond and dark of expression, looks very unhappy to see anyone at all.

Nevermind them, though -- Jaehwan files away this information for later, should it become important, and instead embraces Hakyeon, arms around his waist and cheek against his, slowly taking in the burning heat of his lover’s skin. “I missed you,” he whispers into Hakyeon’s ear, which also turns blue.

“I missed you, too,” Hakyeon says back immediately, then stands back in the manner of introducing someone. “Jaehwan, this is my best friend Taekwoon --” the blond glowers, but nods in what must be an agreeable way, “and Wonsik.” The dark-haired one smiles a little, awkward, clearly wishing to be someplace else. Judging by the fact that neither of them have let go of one another, Jaehwan presumes that they would probably rather be somewhere else with one another, but again, he files this away.

“Where have you been?” Jaehwan’s hand finds the curve of Hakyeon’s shoulder, thumbs over the little gap in his travelling clothes that exposes the fiery orange beneath his clear exoskeleton.

Hakyeon, sheepish at telling stories about himself rather than someone else, sucks in a deep breath. “I’ll tell you when we get back to the ship. Where’s Sanghyuk?”

Jaehwan is suddenly overcome with shame at the realisation that Sanghyuk should be here, even if it made him unhappy, even if it made Wonsik or Taekwoon uncomfortable. “He’s resting,” he half-lies, averting his eyes. “Um, apparently he couldn’t have made it on this planet’s surface.”

A flash of… _something_ overcomes Hakyeon’s face, and before he is forced to identify what it is, he’s guiding himself, Jaehwan, Taekwoon and Wonsik along the platform, into the main of the trading hub. “That’s fine,” he’s saying, all joyful chatter, “he needs his rest anyway, all that studying he’s doing. There’s a really good restaurant that serves Theumian food, if you guys are hungry?”

* * *

Sanghyuk glows even in the darkness of the bedroom. It has a little to do with the sim screen between his hands, casting light upon his pink skin, and a little more to do with the fact that he’s experiencing some serious guilt at having abandoned Jaehwan on a fucking cloud of a planet, probably subjected to horrible cuisine and awkward conversation at Hakyeon’s insistence. He can just picture it, he scoffs bitterly as he makes another kill that leads to another conquest -- Hakyeon doing that thing where he just yammers on and on without paying attention to anyone else’s discomfort and Jaehwan begging to leave, to get back home and be with whom he really belongs.

Fucking Hakyeon. Estothan asshole.

Sanghyuk’s people not being a particularly emotional one, they tended to experience what little feelings of which they were capable in the most outward way possible. These days, more often than not, it’s anger he’s going through -- anger at himself for hinging his outerworld project on two complete idiots, one of whom he found himself somewhat fond; anger at the other simply for being what he is; anger at the entire concept of outerworld projects, because why couldn’t he just stay at home and do research there? -- and anger is the only emotion that turns him from the natural neon pink of his skin to a violent shade of red.

Right now he’s so red it burns him up from the inside.

The other team in the sim he’s playing scores a double kill from him, and he sighs heavily, continuing on with the game even though he doesn’t want to. When the round is over he goes to sign out as he always does when he realises he has a message in a language he’s just learned to read, and a friend request with a humanoid in the display photo.

Weird, he thinks, accepting the request and reading over the message. He doesn’t know any Earthlings, nor did he think this particular sim popular with them, but that’s definitely hangul -- he’s privately grateful for the chance to have learned something, anything new, even more so that it’s been of assistance in at least one case.

Ah, right, the message. He swipes back to his inbox and reads a couple times, not entirely sure that he knows what’s being said. It seems to be a compliment on his gameplay style. Of course, he scoffs to himself, the red in his skin fading back to its normal shade -- he had mastered the actual game the very day upon which he’d come to Jaehwan’s ship and has been, how they say, _schooling_ people ever since.

The informal speech here has him bristling a little, but he thinks it would be alright to share a conversation with this...this...human type, with a serious face and wide eyes and the worst hair he’s possibly seen. These earthlings have no taste, he thinks disdainfully, carding his fingers through the tangled mess of long hair at the nape of his neck.

He must have been playing longer than he’d originally estimated, because the sound of the transporter suddenly fill his ears. Hakyeon and Jaehwan, no doubt. He rolls his way out of the oversized bed the three of them share, shaking the remaining tension from his shoulders and wagging his head to get the remnant glare of his sim screen out from in front of his eyes. A quick glance in the mirror hanging opposite the bed tells him he is still, in fact, pink as he should be, and he goes to greet his shipmates, however reluctant one of these cases might be.

Except it is neither Jaehwan nor Hakyeon standing there on the transporter, but rather two complete strangers of a rather familiar design: glowing orange with faint blue hearts. Sanghyuk freezes in place, unsure as to whether or not he’s already done too much.

“We’re here for you,” says a gravelly voice, brandishing in one hamfist hand a rather heavy-looking weapon, a thick handle made of skin and a black-glass bat almost the length of Sanghyuk’s entire leg. It’s one the likes of which Sanghyuk has only seen in history books, the ones speaking of the almost-conquest of his people and his planet.

Estothan. Sanghyuk’s blood runs hot.

“Me…?” he asks, nearly choking on his own tongue when he speaks.

The owner of the voice says nothing, merely taps the head of his bat against his own open palm. His companion, decidedly smaller, cracks a smile, and his cheeks turn blue at the effort.

* * *

Jaehwan and Hakyeon make it back to Jaehwan's ship first, Wonsik and Taekwoon trailing close behind, though their minds and gazes seem to be elsewhere, enrapt in only one another. Hakyeon is good-natured in his teasing, though there's a reserved edge to his tone, as if he's trying not to say something that he probably should be saying.

He's giving Taekwoon a pointed look, slight smirk curling the corners of his mouth, when he runs smack into Jaehwan, who's stopped in the middle of the floor, staring out the window into the shuttle bay doors with his hands slightly outstretched before him.

"Jaehwan...?" Hakyeon rests a hand on Jaehwan's shoulder, trying to turn him so they face one another, but Jaehwan doesn't move, doesn't say anything, full mouth pursed into the thinnest line, fingers curling into fists so tight that his knuckles turn white.

"He's not here," he says with all the firmness of a disciplinarian about to put someone into some serious trouble, and Taekwoon and Wonsik even stop their conversation to observe what's happening before them. "He's not here. He left."

"Sanghyuk?" Hakyeon asks, but Jaehwan is storming into the bedroom built for two, shared by three, where presumably he'd left Sanghyuk a few hours prior, all huffy and dramatic in that way that Hakyeon secretly kind of adores. He's about to tease some more, point out that maybe Jaehwan shouldn't have been so harsh with him, provided he was, when Jaehwan's voice, suddenly not a part of him but rather something spectral and otherworldly, rings out in a sharp yelp of pain.

Alarmed, Hakyeon clears the short distance between where he's standing and the open bedroom doors to find...a mess. Signs of struggle. Precious books belonging to Sanghyuk that had previously been in piles scattered across the floor. The bed absolutely torn to shreds. A cracked window that will need repair before they leave this planet.

Fuck, Hakyeon thinks, glancing around, wondering if perhaps Sanghyuk had been predisposed to tantrums of some kind and he just hadn't noticed...but no, this is violent, this is chaotic, this is something that doesn't make sense even in the context of someone he doesn't like, someone he might want to paint as villainous. His heart speeds up, and the change in colour, peeking out from beneath the collar of his shirt, catches his periphery, must catch Jaehwan's too because when he turns to Hakyeon, tearful, bottom lip quivering, face wrinkling up in a purely troubled expression he stands stock-still, watching.

Hakyeon sighs, shaking his head and taking Jaehwan into his arms, ignoring the beating of his heart against the inside of his ribcage in favour of taking care of his boyfriend as best he possibly can. He hooks his chin over Jaehwan's slumped shoulder, cheek nestling into the soft down of his hair.

That's when he sees it.

The mirror in the bathroom, barely visible in the dim lighting of the cabin, has red all over it. Hakyeon can't help himself, gasping so hard he almost feels dizzy, and threads his fingers through Jaehwan's, pulling him in.

The mirror has a message, in a language only Hakyeon understands, and his heart stops completely.

 _Come find me,_ it says.

Hakyeon sinks to the floor in complete and total silence, palms splayed on the bathroom floor, absorbing the cold of it until his blood and sinew beneath his glass-clear skin turns from red to orange.

He doesn't know how to tell Jaehwan that it's all his fault.

Some time must pass, because when he looks up again from the smattering of spots between his outspread hands, Jaehwan is gone, and Taekwoon has replaced him, that soft concern that shows on his face so rarely lingering in a soft gaze. He is squatting, the material of his jumpsuit slightly parted around the collar to show off his faded, worn undershirt, and Hakyeon focuses on it, so that he does not focus on the guilt rising in his stomach, roiling, violent and nauseating.

"What happened?" Taekwoon asks for probably the sixth or seventh time, looking a touch impatient -- usually this situation is reversed, Hakyeon having to repeat himself for a listless Taekwoon as he stares off into the distance.

"They took him," Hakyeon says in the most broken voice he's ever heard himself use, all that confidence from just a few minutes ago -- it seems a lifetime, now, him contemplating a fit thrown by Sanghyuk that had ended in him flouncing off instead of something that's, more than likely, ended in an untimely and bloody death -- completely slipping from him, leaving him limp and collapsing to the floor.

Taekwoon doesn't say anything, because he knows, he would know even if Hakyeon didn't say anything, such is the nature of their friendship, but he's none too astute at social things, and he does his best when he reaches out, rubs long lines down the lines of Hakyeon's back.

"It's not your fault," he says in a voice so quiet Hakyeon has to wonder whether or not he tells it to himself.

Eventually Hakyeon collects himself from the floor, no crying, no theatrics, just a stony resolution that turns his blood orange and keeps him from moving as quickly as he knows the situation calls for. He cleans up the mess as best he can, wipes the red stains from the bathroom mirror, and sets himself up for what he's about to say.

Then he goes to Jaehwan, who's sitting, shaking in his pilot's seat, head in his hands and elbows on his knees, and sits in the seat beside him, taking a deep breath as he sinks down into the thinning cushion.

"I have something to tell you," he exhales, and when Jaehwan lifts his eyes to show they're red-rimmed and dripping with extraneous tears, Hakyeon's resolve almost crumbles. But he steels himself at the last second, and without meaning for it to happen the way it does, the entire story of what's more than likely happened to Sanghyuk pours out of him. He tries his best to be gentle about the potential of an end -- he does know his people, after all -- but clams up when it comes to details, skirts around it, glancing elsewhere, into the floor, into the cracks in Jaehwan's hands, into Taekwoon who stands behind them, leaning against the deck's open doors and Wonsik just behind him.

Jaehwan understands, and looks ill, and looks away.

"We have to find him," he says, and Hakyeon wants to wail about how that isn't an option, however much he'd like it to be. He doesn't like Sanghyuk any more than Sanghyuk likes him, but that doesn't mean that he should be responsible for anyone's demise.

"We can try," says Wonsik, and Hakyeon wants to curse this fool, and curse his best friend who brought him here, intruded him upon this exceptionally intimate moment.

"I'll help if I can," says Taekwoon, and Hakyeon wants to cry, wants to scream, wants to gnash his teeth and beat his chest with his fists, so enraptured is he by his own misery at the true hopelessness of this situation, the likes of which no one seems to understand.

But he can't be the one that ruins their hope.

"We'll find Sanghyuk, then," he says in a voice unsteady, pushing his fingers through the gaps in Jaehwan's, gazing between him and their two companions.

* * *

Except...days pass with nothing.

They are on this crowded little craft -- thank the stars Jaehwan and Hakyeon sleep together, else there wouldn’t be enough room on the floor for Wonsik and Taekwoon to eventually ignore, snuggle up together upon -- and there doesn’t seem to be enough air at times. They take trips to rest-stop planets, Taekwoon cooks for everyone, and they become close enough to argue constantly.

Hakyeon is too maternal for Wonsik, makes his skin crawl a little with how much affection he needs, and at first when that affection is directed toward him -- in a late-night moment; they’ve all been drinking, they all are exhausted, they all cannot sleep and are talking about the infinite vastness of their environment, about work and family and love and life -- he does not know how to handle it. He pushes Hakyeon away. Not violently, because he is still a bit afraid of the fact that Hakyeon was raised a warrior and a murderer, but enough that he gets the hint. (Eventually he goes back and apologises, both of his own volition and because Taekwoon keeps shooting him death glares every time he and Hakyeon awkwardly shuffle around each other. When asked about it, Taekwoon shrugs. "There's not enough room to avoid someone in here.")

A week, Earth time, goes by, the only indication being that any time has passed at all being their sleep cycles (well, most of their sleep cycles; Jaehwan, an absolute wreck of a person, sleeps in fits and starts, and Hakyeon, worried about Jaehwan, about Taekwoon and, by extension, Wonsik, doesn't sleep at all) and the occasional call to Wonsik's comm to come back to work.

They find the note in the midst of a heated argument, Wonsik having shuffled off to avoid all of the other three's fighting. He'd just thought that maybe it would be best to clean up the wreckage left by Sanghyuk's kidnappers, whoever they might be. Jaehwan doesn't want to touch Sanghyuk's things, his work, his comics, the little bits and pieces of him still scattered around the ship. Hakyeon thinks they need the room, is tired of seeing his best friend curled up as tight as he can be on the floor every time they sleep. Taekwoon really, really, _really_ wants everyone to shut up.

So Wonsik just does what he can. He straightens fallen books. He sweeps up broken glass. He picks up a comic book and starts reading it, the art style familiar enough to bring a smile to his face. Home.

Halfway through the book, tucked into the spine, there is a scrap of paper, scribbled on in a language Wonsik recognises, but cannot read. He steps back into the main of the ship, amidst the yelling, and holds up the paper as if it is a trophy.

"Can someone tell me what the hell this says?" he asks in the loudest voice he can muster, just enough to be heard over the cacophony of three others.

Jaehwan tries first, all bleary-eyed and worn down from lack of sleep, but gets nothing. "My eyes aren't working right."

"Drink something," Taekwoon suggests icily, taking the paper from between Jaehwan's slender fingers. He too attempts, and gets a little further, mouth forming the shapes of words silently, but eventually he gives up. "I think this is for you," he announces to everyone in the room, louder than Wonsik has ever heard him speak, and he passes the note to Hakyeon.

Hakyeon goes stock-still, statuesque, stone-faced and scarily quiet. Three sets of eyes follow his as he reads the note once, twice, three times before it turns to ash in his hand. The remnants fall to the ground between all their feet, not scattering, simply remaining, a reminder.

"They want to make an exchange," he says at long last.

Jaehwan is shaking his head furiously in protest and, when he looks up, Wonsik sees that Taekwoon is as well. "You can't go," declares Jaehwan with an upturn of his elegant nose, and he huffs right out of the room.

"And you can abandon Sanghyuk just like that?" Hakyeon is trying to reason, but Jaehwan ignores him in favour of continuing what Wonsik had started in cleaning up after the Estothans' mess.

Taekwoon and Wonsik are left alone in the main of the ship. Without even realising, they reach for one another's hands, thread their fingers together, Wonsik slowly dragging his thumb back and forth along the curve of Taekwoon's knuckles.

The door into Hakyeon and Jaehwan's bedroom slides shut, whirring mechanically, drowning out their low-voiced conversation. There's some arguing. A crash. The sound of glass shattering. "Am I going to have to clean that, too," Wonsik murmurs, leaning over, resting his cheek on the point of Taekwoon's shoulder.

Taekwoon opens his mouth, ready to answer, something smartassed for sure -- they've been finding little moments of comfort in one another when Jaehwan and Hakyeon fight, which they seem to do constantly -- when the door slides open again, and Jaehwan is storming out, brow heavy, positively glowering. He starts to pace. Hakyeon follows a few footfalls behind, looking resigned, and his only visible hesitation is when he stops and looks Taekwoon dead in the face.

"It's a trap," protests Taekwoon, weakly, his gaze hidden behind his almost feathery fringe but fixed on Hakyeon anyhow. Wonsik is glued to his side, now, nodding along mutely, unable to contribute though he wants to. "It has to be."

Hakyeon doesn't disagree, but he doesn't agree, either, simply breaking his thousand-yard stare into Taekwoon's face and instead staring out the porthole window at the stars beyond their craft as it drifts, undirected, through the system. He is well aware that it's a trap, that if he is to agree to the terms of the ransom offered he and Jaehwan, that he is more than likely going to end up a prisoner of his own planet at the _very_ best.

Jaehwan is pacing some ten feet away from them, in another room. They can see through the open door that he's got a pinched expression to his face, his hands tucked behind his back as he makes a zigzag pattern with his steps. Hakyeon watches him walk this way and that, head lowered, mumbling to himself, and it's enough to make anyone in the room dizzy and nauseous.

Hakyeon looks away, only to be met by an inquisitive Wonsik, lifting one eyebrow, lips slightly parted, and goodness, he's beautiful. Hakyeon can see why Taekwoon's so fond of him. Even if he is a dirty human who apparently doesn't know that carbon-based lifeforms are supposed to shower every once in a while. "I know," he says at last, standing up, stretching his white-hot limbs, burning brighter as the tension on the ship grows stronger. "But it's the only option they've given us."

"Is it?" Taekwoon doesn't bother to mask his worry, and though he says little, his words have an impact that have even Jaehwan stilling in his erratically steady motions. "You can't go back to them."

"I can do whatever I want," Hakyeon points out, tilting his head, narrowing his eyes in his friend's direction. "I did it before I met you and I can do it today." Even still, he turns his head toward Jaehwan, who has resumed pacing, muttering, bumping into the command console of his own ship as if he didn't even know it was there.

Wonsik, apparently, can't take any more. He gets up, crosses the floor to where Jaehwan is standing, and takes the man by the shoulders, holding him steady. "You need to lie down or something," Wonsik asserts, firm, staring Jaehwan in his overlarge eyes. He only glances away a second or two because Jaehwan's eyes fill with tears.

"This is my fault," he says, voice almost a full octave higher than normal. "If I hadn't picked up Sanghyuk when we were traveling in his galaxy..."

"How is this your fault?" Hakyeon asks, so calm it is utterly terrifying.

There is about to be an argument; Taekwoon and Wonsik can feel it brewing, and they give each other a silent glance, one that suggests that retreat might be the best option for the pair of them. But then Wonsik's comm goes off, and he blinks, visibly surprised to hear the sound it makes. He answers, and there's a live feed of...

"Hongbin!" Wonsik grins brightly, so grateful for the interruption that he almost wants to be able to reach through the screen and kiss his dimpled face.

"Hey, uh, I have something I wanna ask you about," Hongbin begins, looking unsure even through the grainy connection. "Well, a couple things."

"Yeah, definitely. Shoot." He's well aware that everything around him, all the people and noise and overwhelming motion, has completely ceased while he takes this call. It's almost like something out of a film, he thinks, a secret, sly smile crossing his face, if only for a moment.

"First of all, do you need me to put a leave in for you? I've already got it drawn up, I just need your authorisation." Hongbin holds up his tablet screen, which, in all its blurriness, shows some official looking documentation, the seal of he and Wonsik's company of employ at the top.

"Yes, you have my authorisation. I don't know when I'll be home. We're kinda lost out here." He clears his throat awkwardly, "I didn't know that you could contact me at all."

"Yeah, well, miracles happen." Hongbin flashes a crooked grin. "Next, you've been invited to take the placement exam to become a grower. It came in your tube...what, two days ago? I figured you'd be back by now or else I'd've told you sooner."

Wonsik takes pause at this, a long moment. This is his dream. He's wanted to be grounded for as long as he can remember and here's his best friend, handing it to him on a plate, just out of reach of his own hand. He wants so badly to abandon this entire mission, to go home, to take the thing he's always wanted.

_(And then, he remembers._

_One of the nighttimes recently had been just he and Taekwoon -- Hakyeon and Jaehwan had retired early, a rare moment of forgetting for them, they both having been so pleased in one another's company that they felt the need for privacy -- laid out together, cheek to chest, on one shoddy blanket that barely kept the inherent cold of the ship's deck off their skin._

_"What do you want to do?" Taekwoon had asked, lifting his head just enough to peer down into Wonsik's face, open and earnest._

_"I want..." He wanted to go home. He wanted to see his best friend again. He wanted to take Taekwoon to his planet, a land of open fields and vegetation and green and beauty, and show him that it could be good to settle, if only for a little while. But he couldn't say that without feeling a fool, looking as if he wanted to escape this moment rather than this timeline in which he was trapped in essentially a large room with two and a half complete strangers. So he bit his lip, and held his tongue. "I want to be stable. That's all. I spend so much time travelling for work that it feels like I barely have a home."_

_They were quiet a long moment, then Wonsik ventured to ask, "What do_ you _want?"_

_Taekwoon took a sharp breath, humming contemplatively, his hand finding the column of Wonsik's spine and tracing idle lines there. "I want freedom. But freedom only happens for people who take it for themselves."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_He shifted slightly, a little grunt escaping from between his parted lips, and he offered a weak smile. "When you run away from home on your parents' craft, you're not really free. You have to take more, and more, and more, until you don't remember who you owe what. It's selfish."_

_Wonsik, for his part, nodded, humming his agreement without really understanding what it meant. But he loved Taekwoon all the same, despite his selfishness, and wished that his own somehow lined up with it.)_

The quiet shatters when Taekwoon clears his throat, and Wonsik is suddenly aware of how close Taekwoon is standing, his chin hooked over Wonsik's shoulder, peering down into Wonsik's comm screen, his breath warm against the point where Wonsik's pulse beats in his neck.

"You don't have to answer now, obviously, the exams aren't going to be for a few months and I'm sure you'll be back by then..." Hongbin doesn't seem to have noticed the pause in his best friend's conversation, or if he does he doesn't comment on it. Wonsik, silently, thanks the stars. "Which leads me to the last thing. I got this distress comm through the gaming server I'm always losing. It's actually kind of close to where you are right now, so I was wondering if you wanted to go check it out?"

"Depends," Wonsik replies hesitantly, lifting his head a fraction so he can look into the worried faces of Jaehwan and Hakyeon, who aren't touching, who are outside arms' reach of one another. "Send me the details? We're kind of in the middle of something."

"We?" Hongbin stops in his animated conversation with apparently no one, blinks a couple times, and it seems that he hadn't noticed until now that he actually hadn't been paid attention to. His usually hyperfocused gaze, now a little spacey, settles on Taekwoon a moment. "Oh. Hi there." He offers a wave. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," Taekwoon answers, giving the same wave and ducking out of frame, his hand finding the small of Wonsik's back for a moment and patting him there before swinging away, toward his best friend and his best friend's boyfriend, attempting to at least force a false peace between the two of them.

"Anyway," Hongbin continues as if nothing had happened at all, "if you get the chance, maybe look into this." He's already typing away on his tablet, Wonsik can see, Hongbin's eyes cast downward away from the camera. "I'm sending you the details right now. And, uh, hey. If you want to reschedule your exam, if you don't know when you'll get back...let me know. I'll try and do whatever I can so you can have this."

Wonsik nods, making a noncommittal noise. "Thanks. I'll let you know how everything goes." He ends the transmission with a bare hint of a smile on his face, his attempt at feigning reassurance.

When he looks up from his screen after a long minute of staring into his own reflection, Taekwoon is standing there alone, Hakyeon and Jaehwan apparently having taken their argument elsewhere. They're by themselves, in the living area.

The craft rocks slightly beneath them, just enough to make them aware that they are, in fact, moving.

"What do we do?" asks Wonsik, puzzled.

Taekwoon puts on a happy face, and he's so beautiful in that moment that Wonsik could honestly take him by the face and kiss him right there. He refrains, lets Taekwoon take him by the hand.

"Let's get out of here," he suggest, and Wonsik is weak, so weak, knows they need to handle this situation, but with those directly affected out of the way it's hard for him to resist.

He opens his mouth, closes it again, and nods, going a little limp, indicating to Taekwoon that he should lead the way.

* * *

The place where they keep him is dark, and he can hear some kind of dripping from some corner he can neither see nor reach. He swears he can feel his ear twitching at each droplet hitting the cavernous floor, and the longer it goes on the higher the heat rises in his cheeks.

He wonders, just for a moment, if they're looking for him.

When his captors had taken him, Sanghyuk had thought much the same thing -- that, at the very least, Hakyeon wouldn't be horribly interested in finding the place where he'd been taken. He knows he's a source of tension, knows that he and Hakyeon's undercurrent of fighting and ingrained hatred and ugliness has caused more than its fair share of problems between Hakyeon and Jaehwan, and if he's using his intellect he knows that it would make perfect sense for Hakyeon to suggest they just move along without him.

But then he sees flashes of before, of Hakyeon's kind eyes, tired from listening to Sanghyuk and Jaehwan arguing, and he knows that it isn't in Hakyeon's nature to just abandon someone.

For now, he hopes.

They feed him twice a day, watery broth made of the bones of an animal he has yet to identify in his studies and something that might resemble bread on the right planet; they visit him to make sure he isn't injured badly enough to warrant medical attention. Apparently he isn't good ransom if he doesn't come back in good condition.

Still, the dripping persists. It's starting to make him crazy.

He had fought his first day, of course, kicked at the laser bars and screamed until his throat was raw and he swore he could feel his vocal cords bleeding. They had laughed at his pitiful attempts to escape his cage, but otherwise ignored him.

At least they had left him his handheld console -- it had very little battery on that first day, but he could still try. He sent out distress signals to everyone on his server, not expecting much; the few replies he had received before the device went dead were asking him if this was some kind of prank. One helpful individual had offered to call the space police, but not even the space police were stupid enough to mess with a situation like this.

When the screen had blinked off, he stared at it for what felt like an entire year, disbelieving that even his best attempts to be rescued should be shunned like this.

In this moment, though, he is hopeful. Or, at least, he is trying to be. In the dim light from the electric torches just beyond the bars of his cage, Sanghyuk changes the colour of his skin, watches the electric pink fade to a soft blue, a nearly living green, a sour shade of yellow. He grows his hair so long he can hide in it. He blends in with the cave behind him.

Even still, the dripping, the thought that perhaps he may be stuck here for the rest of his days, drives him utterly mad.

When the solitude gets too much he talks to no one, his voice echoing off the walls of his cell, seeming to answer him. He beats at the floor with his fists until he swears he can hear his knuckles crack. He watches the seams of his skin split apart, one by one, swelling up in the gaps between with fluorescent white.

Things fall quiet again. Days must pass, because the wounds he'd inflicted upon himself start to scab, become ugly, mottled things. He watches them work at healing him, and wishes so badly that he weren't such a fighter, that he hadn't been so stubborn. In grieving he promises to be better to Hakyeon, and even to Jaehwan, and make friends with their friends, whoever they are, and to stop working so hard and spend more time being loving toward people he loves, anything so long as he makes it out of here.

The bargaining doesn't work. He is still here.

_Drip, drop, drip, drop._

Alone, he curls in upon himself, and sobs silently, not wanting to accidentally garner any attention from his captors.

* * *

They haven't left bed for two Earth days, according to the clock Jaehwan keeps on the dropdown tray beside the bed. This entire time they've been interlocked, hips to hips, lips to lips, heart to heart, Jaehwan whimpering Hakyeon's name over and over again until it doesn't make sense anymore.

Each time, Hakyeon collapses back into the shoddy mattress beneath him, swearing up and down he'll burn through it. Each time, Jaehwan lays beside him, atop him, traces the white-hot outlines of his heart.

"I love making you cum," Jaehwan says dreamily, burning his lips against the surface of Hakyeon's skin as he kisses his shoulder, his breastbone, his heart, "'cause then I get to see this."

They're both pretending that Hakyeon's heart doesn't glow brighter at this. They're both actively imagining a world in which Hakyeon doesn't have to trade his life for someone else's. They're both trying to believe that Jaehwan isn't soaking up all the energy he can, wrapped in Hakyeon's embrace, the elder buried inside him still even as they catch their breaths.

Eventually, though, they grow tired. They rest. They talk about everything and nothing. Jaehwan finally asks Hakyeon when and how he met Taekwoon (a story which Hakyeon tells nothing short of dramatically, a tinge of romanticism on his breath -- on the run from his people, he had crash-landed on a desert planet, and Taekwoon, the kind soul that he is, had decided to rescue Hakyeon in his hour of need). Hakyeon asks Jaehwan about his mother (a being of light and affection who had raised him as best she could before his father, a bounty hunter, had been forced to turn her in so that their son could somehow eat and get off the decaying mass that was his home). They both actively avoid talking about Sanghyuk, his name hovering on both their lips on occasion but never actually brought to pass.

Eventually, they break.

"We have to cooperate," Hakyeon says, voice low, bleak, legs entangled with Jaehwan's, trying to keep him close. "It's the only way you're going to get Sanghyuk back."

Jaehwan is stout in his refusal, as he would be if he didn't want to get up and cook for them, as he would be if he wanted to be on top of the pile of boyfriends instead of the bottom. He treats this exactly the same, obviously unwilling to acknowledge that, should Hakyeon go to the Estothans keeping Sanghyuk hostage, he will more than likely die.

"There has to be another way." His pout is legendary; Hakyeon will remember it fondly right to the very end. "We can figure something out."

"And what if we can't?" asks Hakyeon, almost alarmingly pragmatic. "I'm not saying we shouldn't try, we just...need to face up to reality."

Jaehwan stops looking Hakyeon in the eye so much, then. He stops holding on quite so tightly. Eventually he stops coming to bed at all, just sits at the command console and waits for some solution to present itself.

It doesn't. Not quite. But he waits anyway.

Hakyeon wants so badly to go to him, to fit his arms around Jaehwan, envelop him in warmth and tell him everything will be okay.

But, see, years ago when he left home, Hakyeon made this promise to never lie, to never be true to anyone besides himself.

So even though it hurts him, he doesn't do all these things. He lets Jaehwan pull away, just a little, just enough that it doesn't hurt anymore.

* * *

Taekwoon and Wonsik, on their adventure, go to a little moon a system or two over, Taekwoon piloting the getaway craft meant for one person with surprising precision considering he's basically doing it around Wonsik's frame. Wonsik is sat in Taekwoon's lap, squirming uncomfortably every time one of his legs starts to go to sleep. It's a long ride, but not one he dislikes; they pass the time by playing little games of I Spy and talking about everything that comes to their mind. In essence it's like a smaller version of what they've been going through back on Jaehwan's ship, except Taekwoon is close enough to kiss, and Wonsik is painfully aware of that.

After the longest ride of Wonsik's life, though, he's happy to touch ground again, to stretch out in his entirety, his arms over his head, his neck popping loudly.

Taekwoon, for his part, looks like he wants to die as soon as they've landed, his brows pinched together in deep, serious discomfort. "Come on," he implores, hand around the soft inner of Wonsik's wrist. "I don't want this to be longer than it has to be."

Puzzled, Wonsik follows where he's lead, across the curving surface of this moon, its area so small that he can feel the shape of it beneath his feet. After a somewhat long walk, they seem to stumble upon a mansion, presumably the owners of this moon, the family playing croquet on an artificial lawn, the balls just an inch or two off the ground.

Taekwoon seems to know them, which makes this all the more uncomfortable for Wonsik, if he's honest. He pulls Wonsik along harder than necessary, bony fingers digging into Wonsik's flesh and causing him to wince audibly. The gesture goes unnoticed. Taekwoon marches on, a soldier in a war against aliens he doesn't want to fight.

Except these aren't aliens, Wonsik realises, each step carrying him closer to seeing the faces of these strangers, these owners of a pretty prime piece of real estate. A man, a woman, a servant in decidedly formal dress, all with mallets in hand. Taekwoon greets them with a wave, finally letting Wonsik go (he rubs at the seemingly raw spot at his wrist, the skin tingling with a sudden burst of circulation).

"Mother, father," says Taekwoon in his most rigid tone, and his parents (his fucking parents, Wonsik realises with a start; he didn't crawl out of some rock all perfect and wonderful and giving, he was actually _born_ from someone). "I was in the system and thought I should drop by."

Mother (Taekwoon's the spitting image of her, and the idea makes Wonsik's heart fond) stares at Taekwoon as if she's seeing a ghost. Father, though, just nods, swings his croquet mallet over his shoulder. "Son, you're here," he greets, as if commenting on the weather, on the price of shipping vegetables. "Are you ready to turn yourself in to the proper authorities, then?"

"No, you don't mean that--" Taekwoon's mother gasps, horrified, gloved hand covering her mouth as if she's afraid to show her teeth.

"I most certainly do. He's been travelling around with our most expensive craft for how long? He's taken how much money from us?"

Taekwoon clears his throat; his mother and father startle, as does Wonsik. The only impassible force here is the manservant, who, as it turns out, is a robot. It goes to the table and pours a third and fourth glass of tea. Wonsik has to stifle his laughter.

"I just wanted to introduce you to my boyfriend," Taekwoon announces, and Wonsik swears he feels ice inject itself into his veins, the starting point right around his suddenly unbeating heart. "Wonsik, these are my parents. They own this moon. I own its neighbour over there -- " Taekwoon lifts an arm, points in some vaguely westward direction, as if it doesn't matter that he owns an entire _moon_ by himself, "provided they haven't cut me out of the will yet."

"Oh, we have," states his father in a most stately manner. "I had the attorneys take care of that as soon as you left."

"Taekwoon, we should go -- " Wonsik's slipping a hand into the crook of Taekwoon's elbow, trying to pull him away.

"No, hold on," he whispers sharply, "I have to do this." He lifts his head a fraction, steels his jaw. "I need your help with something, and then you'll never see me again."

Taekwoon's father's face, which has been growing redder and ruddier by the minute, seems to hit a critical point; a vein pops out on his forehead, and Wonsik is caught somewhere between crying and laughing at the sight of him. "The only thing with which we can help you is the criminal charges brought against you," intones Father stonily.

"Oh, that's all? Okay. Well." Taekwoon takes a breath, a step back, turns to Wonsik only to give him a look of pleading, as if asking a question they've never actually discussed. "My boyfriend here is pregnant, and I don't have my craft anymore--"

"You what?!" demands Mother, voice rising a full octave. Wonsik has to physically cover his face to keep from screaming, his own blush rising high enough to meet that of Taekwoon's father's beet-red cheeks.

"--and I don't want to raise my child in something as dingy as what I brought here. You can go down to the north face, if you want, and look at what I'm working with right now." He half-smirks, Wonsik can hear it in his voice even though he's standing a half-step behind Taekwoon's almost proud-standing form. "I just thought you should know you're going to be grandparents again, and that we would be so happy if you could give us a better home to work with."

Father goes to argue, but Mother stops him with a hand on his mallet-bearing fist, and gives him a look that says so many more things than Wonsik even knows how to say.

Several hours later, they're leaving the moon Taekwoon's parents inhabit in a brand new, state-of-the-art craft, outfitted for light battle if need be and a hell of a lot faster than Jaehwan's broken-down rig. Wonsik is still in utter disbelief at the acting he'd pulled off through that time -- at one point Mother had asked him about the nature of he and Taekwoon's child, and Wonsik had looked away, smiled secretively, and murmured something about not knowing exactly how many eggs he'd bear -- and the fact that Taekwoon had come with a plan, a fucking _plan_.

"What happens when they find out I'm not some weird egg-laying critter and you're not the father to thousands?" Wonsik asks, giving Taekwoon a little shove with his shoulder.

"They never will," says Taekwoon solemnly. He’s already fiddling with the command console -- they’ve barely even left the artificial atmosphere, for God’s sake -- and manually disabling the tracers on the craft. Once that’s set up they’re on the way back to where they had left Jaehwan and Hakyeon the day before, as if they’d never been touched.

“You called me your boyfriend,” Wonsik points out after a stretch of silence, not quite looking at Taekwoon but rather the minute movements of his hands in his lap.

“I did,” Taekwoon agrees, his focus fixed on the stars as they glide on by. “Should I not have? It might not have worked.”

“Yeah, they might have tried to pay for my alien abortion,” Wonsik half-jokes, voice dead from how exhausted he is. “Wonder what that’s like.”

“You’re not even alien pregnant.”

“Doesn’t make me not wonder.” A pause. “How soon do we have to be back?”

“What’s today?”

“Tuesday.”

Taekwoon pauses now, humming under his breath. “We really should get back to them,” he says, the voice of reason and consideration where Wonsik neither wants nor needs him to be. “The more quickly we find Sanghyuk, the more quickly I can take you on another date.”

Wonsik glances around, points himself square in the chest. “Me? A _nother_ date?”

Taekwoon laughs and the sound of it blows the breath straight out of Wonsik’s lungs. “Slow down. We have things to do first.”

Maybe sulking, maybe not, Wonsik turns his attention to a late communication from Hongbin -- the coordinates of the distress call he’d received on his gaming server, as well as the contents of the message. So tired he feels his eyes slipping closed already (he’s already thinking about how to explain to his best friend that he didn’t even have time for himself, let alone saving a whole other person), he scans over the signal.

The first line has him wide awake.

_My name is Sanghyuk._

* * *

Within a day and a half, Taekwoon and Wonsik have found Hakyeon and Jaehwan on their craft, drifting along at the edges of a nebulous cloud, about ready to get caught up in its pull. They broadcast to their companions. Or, well, Taekwoon does, looking embarrassed as the comm camera’s green light scans him up and down. _Hakyeon. We might be able to find Sanghyuk. Come onto this ship._ He encloses his own personal trace -- the one used if he gets lost in space, adrift and without a suit -- and waits.

Jaehwan and Hakyeon board the new craft within twenty minutes, and suffice it to say, Jaehwan is not happy about leaving his own ship behind. “That’s my _baby_ ,” he whines, hands balled into fists in front of him, bottom lip sticking out.

Wonsik, unamused (but weirdly affected by this display of preciousness), tilts his head, frowns so deeply he can feel it in the veins in his neck. “Your boyfriend got _my_ baby destroyed.”

That shuts Jaehwan up real quick. He stalks off to what he loudly designates as his and Hakyeon’s bedroom, even though Wonsik and Taekwoon’s stuff is already in there, the door sliding shut almost loudly behind him.

From behind the door, they can all hear Jaehwan asking, muffled as his voice is, “How did you even _get_ all this…?”

Wonsik flushes at the memory, and busies himself attending to the command console, hooking his own device up to the comm center so he can broadcast the message received to everyone here, should they be interested in looking.

Hakyeon doesn’t seem interested in whatever drama Wonsik and Jaehwan are having, is already pacing the floor, waiting for what information he can be given. Taekwoon doesn’t have to stretch his imagination far in order to know that Hakyeon doesn’t believe in another way out of this predicament. “Hey, so,” and he shuffles closer to Hakyeon, burning his palms on Hakyeon’s shoulders just to still him a moment. Hakyeon complies, gives Taekwoon a dull stare, wiggles under his grasp with the need to move. “You have to see the message. I know you’re scared, but…”

The door to the sleeping quarters slides open again, and Jaehwan’s right there again, an arm around Hakyeon’s middle, pulling him close. “He isn’t scared. We’ve already decided what to do.”

“Maybe don’t make a decision before you see this,” suggests Wonsik, the last of his servos connecting to the necessary display. The message is there, green and grey, on the screen, and Hakyeon reads it aloud, Jaehwan unable to even look at it.

_My name is Sanghyuk. My boyfriend’s people are holding me for ransom at the location I’m sending. I know this sounds like a joke; it isn’t. If you can find a trace on either of the people I’m enclosing database information on, please let them know where I am so that they can come find me. Thank you._

The attached location is a place Hakyeon knows, a space station fashioned after his home planet, located on the edge of the system from which he originates. The information has him sinking slowly to his knees, shaking, his heart glowing faintly through his shirt. He doesn’t cry -- he’s done enough of that already, enough kicking himself and standing on his own throat and needs to be able to stand tall on this, at some point -- but the shivers that fill him from his white-hot core make him feel cold for the first time.

“That’s where they go to kill prisoners,” he mumbles, lips numb, the floor under his knees threatening to give way beneath him as he either collapses into a pile of cooled magma or melts everyone in this ship. “They could have killed him by now.”

“I don’t think so,” Jaehwan disagrees, defensive edge evident in his voice. “I just… I would know. If he were dead. We’ve dropped him on so many random planets and he’s gotten himself out of trouble. I...I would know.” Far be it from Hakyeon to doubt Jaehwan’s empathic abilities, if they’re as strong as he claims they are.

“We can find him,” Taekwoon murmurs, and Jaehwan lifts his head, his eyes twinkling gold as he gives Hakyeon’s shoulder a squeeze.

“What do you want to do?” Jaehwan asks, so low that neither Taekwoon nor Wonsik hear it.

Hakyeon looks from the screen in front of him to the man still standing next to him, and nods, the shine of his heart dimming beneath his clothing. “Let’s go get our Sanghyuk back.”

* * *

Travel is a couple days -- it would’ve been longer in Jaehwan’s ship, Wonsik is more than happy to point out, a fact to which Jaehwan grudgingly concedes -- but it doesn’t seem like that long, everyone chatting along and coming up with a plan. Thankfully Hakyeon knows the place they’re going to end up, and Taekwoon can help him draw up a map, plot quicker courses to the station. They get together almost immediately and draw up a plan of attack. Wonsik keeps the ship steady, makes sure any and all mechanical issues are dealt with before they happen. The one time they have to dock for fuel, he even manages to beef up the security and weapons systems a little, for when they have to make their inevitable getaway.

And Jaehwan...well, he can feel Sanghyuk. Even if they don’t have a direct lock on where he’s stuck in this space station, he can lead whomever right to Sanghyuk if pressed, the connection between them giving everyone a better understanding of direction. Not to mention he’s probably the only one that they haven’t actually seen, as of yet. It seems only natural that he should be the one to go in and do the rescuing.

The entire few hours before they’re set to make their way onto the station, though, Hakyeon is right back to pacing, all nervous energy and discomfort, which sets everyone else on edge. At one point even Taekwoon snaps at him and tells him to sit down and wait, but he immediately lowers his eyes and apologises once he realises his mistake.

In his own quarters, the door open so that if something catastrophic happens he’ll know about it and get to fix it immediately, Wonsik is on the comms with Hongbin, who’s telling him all about some girl he’s talking to planetside, a transfer student from another farming company in the next galaxy over. Wonsik, in turn, tells Hongbin everything he can without fear of getting caught -- about Taekwoon, especially, because Hongbin hadn’t even had to ask for Wonsik to know that he wanted to.

“I met his parents,” says Wonsik casually, during a small lull in the conversation. “When we went off by ourselves the other day? They seem like assholes. Rich assholes.”

“Where did you go off by yourselves?” Hongbin hasn’t stopped typing this entire time, and if Wonsik didn’t know any better he’d accuse his best friend of messaging some girl in the middle of their bro time.

Wonsik rattles off the name and numbered designation of the system, the planet whose of orbit in which the moon was nestled, a mostly gaseous giant called Oinope. “It was really nice. Fake atmosphere, fake lawn, fancy robot butler tuned to recognise human and humanoid presences. I’ve seen a lot worse.”

As if tuning in for the first time, Hongbin looks into the camera, startled. “That family owns this company,” he tells Wonsik slowly, and then he’s back to typing, more furiously now. “Yeah, not only do they own this farm, they own all the farms on this side of this galaxy. They’ve got more money than anyone would know what to do with.”

“I kinda figured,” sniffs Wonsik, turning over in bed so as to lay on his side. “They seemed pretty snotty.”

“Yeah, they’re all about...what is it, laying down roots? Something like that.” A pause, and then, “The family crest even says ‘rooted deeply’ on it. Big, heavy tree, the kind they used to have on earth. Taekwoon isn’t like that, is he?”

Wonsik can’t help the fond smile that spreads across his face. “No, I guess he isn’t.”

Just then Jaehwan ambles on into the bedroom, looking haggard -- everyone else has slept, even Wonsik, but Jaehwan’s refused, something about needing to be around the others and present even if they’re sleeping so he can get more energy -- but ready. “We’re going to be within hacking range in about thirty minutes,” he announces, giving Wonsik the blankest stare he thinks he’s ever seen. “I hope you’re ready to fly us out of here.”

Wonsik nods, turns back to his comm. “Hey, we’ve gotta go.”

Hongbin smiles. “Yeah, cool. Good luck. Be safe out there. Don’t let my friend go to waste in some weird dungeon deal.”

Grunting, noncommittal, Wonsik offers a wave and hangs up the call. Then he stretches his every limb as long as he can, until he’s sure his muscles will cramp, and heads out onto what they’ve affectionately titled their bridge.

Looking around said bridge, Wonsik observes...well, a working crew. Hakyeon is fleshing out the finest details of the map that his memory will allow, with Taekwoon over his shoulder, asking questions in an attempt to help. Jaehwan appears to be downing coffee with one hand, the other firmly set against the small of Hakyeon’s back. He looks slightly more awake now, but whether that’s because of the coffee or because of the energy he’s probably siphoning from Hakyeon, Wonsik can’t really tell, and ultimately he decides it doesn’t matter and pours some coffee himself.

Taekwoon’s thousand-yard stare is burning holes into Wonsik’s back, right between his shoulderblades; when Wonsik turns back, a coffee mug in hand, he’s met with Taekwoon’s shining smile, and everything else kind of melts away. For him, anyhow. Hakyeon and Jaehwan are still on edge, visibly so.

“Are we ready?” asks Wonsik. Everyone nods almost uncertain agreement.

The minutes tick by like days, but they find themselves within the range that they can trace the energy signature of the space station itself. It’s through this that Taekwoon is able to hack into their teleport systems. It takes a little while, and they have to spend more time than Wonsik would like ducking behind this asteroid or that one so as to not be seen by passing Estothan ships, war vessels, the sort that dwarf their own by size of their guns alone. Eventually, though, they get a strong enough connection that they can send Jaehwan where he’s supposed to go.

“Are you ready?” Hakyeon asks Jaehwan as he’s standing on the launchpad, Taekwoon and Wonsik jointly at the helm of the teleporter. Hakyeon’s hands are on either side of Jaehwan’s neck, thumbing over where his pulse must be, and Jaehwan is looking anywhere but into Hakyeon’s earnest face.

“I’m going to be fine,” he teases quietly, a little grin curling the corners of his lips. “Don’t worry so much, okay? We’ll be back before you know it.”

Hakyeon does not shy away from stealing a kiss from his departing beloved. Wonsik, vaguely nauseated by this display of affection, lets Taekwoon curl a pinky around his, give it a little tug.

“You’ve ported before?” asks Wonsik, a bit harried by his own private show of love. “Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times. Seriously. Try not to even breathe until you know you’ve made it through alright.”

Jaehwan nods gravely, and leans down to steal another kiss. “Seriously. Don’t do that pacing thing. Don’t boss them around. You’ll make them crazy and then they won’t be able to get us here in one piece, let alone get all of us out of here.”

Hakyeon laughs his agreement, shaking his head as if he doesn’t know what to do with Jaehwan, and moves to stand clear of the launchpad. Taekwoon lets go of Wonsik’s pinky in favour of working the controls, and Wonsik does the same.

“On the count of three,” announces Wonsik, feeling Taekwoon shift beside him and taking it as confirmation. “One...two...three.”

Then the room is filled with deep violet light, a long stretch of it. When the light flickers out, Jaehwan is gone.

* * *

The dripping has stopped.

Sanghyuk looks up into the darkness, the direction from which the dripping had come all this time. _Is he dead?_ he wonders quietly, lips pursed, pushed out, serious. He can feel the mostly unused muscles of his face contort, and when he speaks it’s in a voice still raw from screaming, with words he doesn’t quite remember.

“Who’s there?”

No one responds. But instead of the quiet, shallow breathing of the Estothans who’ve been holding him all this time, he is met with complete and utter silence.

Heavens help him, he thinks to himself, scrambling to his feet as if he’ll somehow get a better vantage point if he’s no longer on the floor. Heavens help him if he finds out that the dripping, still playing in his brain even though it’s not actually happening anymore, had been manufactured. Sanghyuk isn’t a violent person, but under these circumstances he could be.

The chamber just outside his laser-barred cell is, in fact, empty, no guards with their strange, fire-coloured skin watching over him. He kicks at his bars, but as usual they do not budge. He kicks at his door, though, and it moves, just a fraction, just enough that he gets the idea to maybe continue kicking it.

Eventually it opens a whole crack, and he slips his hand into that space, wrenches it open as best he can, but it gets stuck in the dirt of his holding cell floor, and he weeps and gnashes his teeth with the effort of it all. Somewhere in the distance, the constant dripping has been replaced by a siren, and what little light there is in this room brightens, tinged the faintest shade of red, almost imperceptibly but true enough.

Sanghyuk’s breath catches in his chest. He hears footsteps. Must be the guards, distracted by a drill of some kind. He doesn’t want to see them, doesn’t want any and all hope he’d managed to gather during his stay here to crumble beneath him like the rest of the world has. Turning his back to the door, he takes his usual spot on the ground, knees tucked beneath his chin.

It is only when he hears the decidedly humanesque clearing of a throat that Sanghyuk spares a glance over his shoulder. He still does not expect much.

He certainly does not expect Jaehwan, standing there, red-cheeked and out of breath, his eyes deep and rich, that shade of gold they turn when he’s tapping into his own empathy.

“You came,” gasps Sanghyuk, desperate for air as he runs to the bars that hold him, reaching through them as if to grab Jaehwan and pull him through despite the slight burns they’re causing his bare skin. “This...this isn’t a dream, right? Or...what do you people call it, Heaven?”

Jaehwan laughs, and his voice is better than that of any angel, and all Sanghyuk wants to do is pull him close, hold him tight, breathe in the scent of him and feel the warmth that radiates from him, that Sanghyuk had been so sure he would never feel again. “I’m just me,” he points out, reaching out and slipping his fingers through Sanghyuk's.

Again, in the distance, a siren sounds, louder this time but no closer; Sanghyuk flinches from the sound, but otherwise keeps still, holds Jaehwan's hand a moment. "I can't break down the door," he mumbles. "I tried."

Jaehwan grins, starts digging in the pocket of his travel suit, procures a little chip the likes of which are usually used for locking up one's ship. "You think I'd ever come on a rescue mission unprepared?" Sanghyuk doesn't want to know how Jaehwan obtained the key to his cell and chooses merely to be grateful that he did.

After a bit of playing with it they select the correct slot, and the door swings open. Sanghyuk's hearts beat hard against his insides as he steps outside. The dripping has resumed. He is happy to escape it.

"Ready to go?" asks Jaehwan with a sly look, hooking his arm around Sanghyuk's and pulling him in the direction of the door, which starts to creak shut as they move. Sanghyuk tries to let Jaehwan go first in case they end up trapped. Jaehwan pushes him right out the door and slips through behind him, the tail of his suit catching in it, causing a small tear.

"Is that going to be a problem?" Sanghyuk asks, breathless, as they press against the wall. Jaehwan ignores it, already has a weapon drawn, not that it'll do them much good if they get caught. Somewhere down the long corridor stretched out on either side of them they can hear the pounding of footsteps. Sanghyuk looks to Jaehwan, pointed, frowning.

"We can't go the way I came," is all Jaehwan says, and leads them off to the right. Sanghyuk follows suit, wishing he had more than a dead console with which to defend them.

This hallway is a lot darker than the one Sanghyuk remembers. He supposes he must have gone through the same way Jaehwan did when he was first brought here. They move quickly, lightly, backs dragging against the walls, breathing ragged but quiet. Pausing at a corner, a four-way intersection, Jaehwan whispers sharply...something, Sanghyuk doesn't understand. Then Jaehwan steps back and Sanghyuk steps forward and looks to see what Jaehwan had seen.

Fuck. There's a half dozen of them, all heavily outfitted, armoured, dual-wielded weaponry appearing mighty threatening. Sanghyuk gulps, then covers his mouth and throat with both hands as if that'd somehow keep the sound from coming out retroactively. Jaehwan, though, is a cool cucumber. "Make yourself look like them," he suggests.

"There is no way." Sanghyuk shakes his head, hand seeking Jaehwan's without even looking.

"At least a little bit," and here Jaehwan might be a little petulant, doesn't like his Genius Ideas being shot down. "If we go quickly, we'll both be able to pass through, no problem."

"You don't even know which way you're going," insists Sanghyuk, giving Jaehwan's wrist a lame squeeze.

"I know that we don't want to go where they're standing. The easiest way is across."

"Now isn't the time to take stupid risks!"

"Then what do you suggest, we just stay here?" Jaehwan's worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth as if either of them actually think that would be a good idea. Then he's using that leverage to wriggle Sanghyuk's arm behind his back, not painfully, just enough to catch Sanghyuk's attention. "Trust me. I'll get us back to Hakyeon, at the very least."

Hakyeon? Sanghyuk stifles a gasp behind his free hand. "He's here...?"

Just then, a blast sounds off, loud enough to deafen them both, in the direction of the Estothan warriors down the hall. Sanghyuk would gladly lie for Jaehwan but he would never miss the chance to admit that Jaehwan screams at the sudden explosion.

The soldiers are caught up in melee, shrouded in smoke, and Jaehwan, upon seeing this, untwists Sanghyuk's arm and pulls him across the hall and down the way. In passing, Sanghyuk swears he hears a familiar voice amidst the battle cries, but he can't place it, and doesn't want to get lost in it. He follows along, resolves to ask about it later.

Jaehwan keeps swearing under his breath every time they get turned around, and Sanghyuk's got half a mind to ask him to stop and ask for directions, just to lighten the tension, when they run smack-dab into the biggest, burliest person Sanghyuk has ever in his life seen. The figure grunts down at them, brandishing an oversized and rather heavy-looking stone hammer.

Again, Sanghyuk gulps. Behind him lasers sound off, cannonfire, and he jumps, hits the deck. If there were ever a time to have a weapon...

It doesn't matter, because something knocks the brute over from behind, straight onto its face. There's a cacophonous tinkling sound, as if a thousand different glasses are breaking at the same time, and the floor spills over with white-hot molten insides that come spilling out of the golem's face. "What the fuck?!" shrieks Jaehwan, hopping up onto Sanghyuk’s back just as quickly as Sanghyuk clambers to his feet and starts back down the hallway.

He sprints along the way, until he's sure his lungs will burst, but he does not outrun everything. Sidling up beside him is a complete stranger, one that Jaehwan seems to regard with a strange fondness that softens his fear at the edges. "You guys aren't supposed to be here?" he asks in a shout, the speed at which they're moving combined with the constant blaring of sirens, louder with every step, making conversation difficult.

"Hakyeon got worried," says the stranger with a secret smile, and Sanghyuk doesn't really know how to take this, doesn't really know how to take anything.

He keeps moving regardless of the spinning his head's doing. They jump over a stream of fallen soldiers, lain out in the middle of a crossway. When they stop it's in a room that is, mercifully, empty; it contains one of the launchpads developed on Sanghyuk's home planet, and he wants to scream about that, just as much as he wants to scream about anything that's happened to him recently. But the stranger sees this, stops him, a hand on his shoulder.

Sanghyuk pretends he hadn't seen this man shatter the skull of an Estothan soldier and spill his molten innards all over the floor, and that he doesn't tremble slightly at the touch.

"I have to stay," says this man to Jaehwan, and his voice is . "They're still floating around in here somewhere. Take Sanghyuk and go back to the ship. I'll send you off."

"They?" asks Sanghyuk, strain in his voice, hysteria evident around the edges of his words.

Jaehwan nods in a way that assures confidence, even though his face is full of questions, of fear that cannot be placed. "Yeah, we...got a couple people to help me get you out of here. Or rather they wouldn't let me come alone." Despite the softness of his eyes, Jaehwan flashes a big smile, a cheesy wink and earns himself a shove in the shoulder. "What? You think I came on a rescue mission unprepared?"

"Well, yes," says Sanghyuk blithely as he climbs up onto the launchpad, gangly, exhausted limbs tucked in neatly. This isn't his first time. "Hey, uh, you."

"Taekwoon," says the stranger, running a palm up along his forehead to push his dripping platinum fringe out of his eyes. "I'm Taekwoon."

"Yeah, Taekwoon," continues Sanghyuk, "I don't know whose idea it was to not let this idiot go by himself -- " Jaehwan squawks, indignant, and Sanghyuk ignores him like an expert -- "but, you know, thanks."

"Oh, that was Hakyeon's idea, too," Taekwoon says quietly, and looks down, indicating the end of a conversation. He busies himself with the buttons on the console as Jaehwan climbs up onto the launchpad next to Sanghyuk.

"Keep your important parts inside," instructs Taekwoon to no one in particular. Jaehwan, clearly not used to this much physical activity in this short a timespan, tries his best to keep still. "Don't want to end up splicing you with some weird bug creature."

"Wait, what?" Sanghyuk jerks at the thought.

"Nothing. We're off in three...two...one..." And Sanghyuk's vision is full of deep violet, his entire body crawling, shivering, shimmering in a way he cannot place. It is as if he is feeling himself on a molecular level, each and every quark that comprises him shifting and rearranging to make him fit a mold that no humanoid has ever been meant to fit.

Then nothing.

For a second he is sure he's dead.

Then he and Jaehwan are on a ship, the likes of which Sanghyuk is wholly unfamiliar.

Jaehwan embraces Sanghyuk, and if he is sobbing, they do not acknowledge it. They hold each other for a long, long time.

Someone clears their throat from behind the place where Jaehwan and Sanghyuk stand. They turn, chest to chest, a two-headed being fixated on one point, and are faced with a knowing smirk, relaxed posture, feet kicked up onto the craft's command console.

"We have to get ready to get out of here when they get back," says this human, in a voice so deep Sanghyuk feels it in the center of him. When he smiles, little craters appear in his cheeks. They're almost charming. "Nice to meet you both. I'm Hongbin. I'll be your getaway driver today."

And then Hongbin cringes, burying his face in his hands. "Sorry. I'll stop talking forever now."

* * *

Taekwoon and Hakyeon smash through their third warrior in about as many minutes, spilling his molten contents and forcing the three of them battling their way off the space station to jump out of the stream. "Aren't you glad you came along?" says Wonsik, shooting his laser pistol around a corner and, judging by the sound of it, felling at least another two enemies.

Hakyeon grimaces, steps lightly over the still-intact bodies that are making the dam that keeps them safe, careful not to let the magma slowly consuming what little floor they have to work with catch any bit of him.

Taekwoon, like a true potential sociopath, is laughing so hard he actually has to stop and catch his breath after a fourth kill. Wonsik lowers his gun and goes to Taekwoon's side, a tender hand on his shoulder.

When Taekwoon lifts his head, still laughing but silently, both Wonsik and Hakyeon give Taekwoon a look of pure confusion. "Wonsik, remember when you were a kid and you used to play 'the floor is made of lava'?"

And just like that, Wonsik is laughing too, as if they're not taking down a horde of fucking aliens right now, as if they're just spending some time together like they had on the way here.

Eventually they run out of enemies to absolutely slaughter and the path appears clear. "C'mon, we gotta get to the launchpad," breathes Taekwoon now that he has the chance, the remnants of giggles still wiggling around in his voice. "I don't think this place is gonna last much longer."

"What makes you say that?" Wonsik wants to know, even as he's catapulting himself over the stream of Estothan blood and guts that threaten his life at this very second like it's a parkour video from a couple centuries ago.

"Oh, your friend wanted to throw something together," Hakyeon says casually, and Wonsik sputters, it being his first time hearing about this. "I told him the best spots in which to do it."

"And I told him the best places to hack into to get the biggest effect," Taekwoon agrees, dodging a corpse in the middle of the floor but only just.

"The fuck kind of criminal masterminds are you?" Wonsik demands, nearly smacking into the doorframe as he attempts to get into the teleport room.

"Ask your friend," insists Hakyeon, hoisting himself up onto the launchpad.

Taekwoon gestures for Wonsik to get up there, too, but Wonsik shakes his head. "I'll send you two ahead first."

"And what if you don't get out?" asks Taekwoon, his voice a shade off small. He hangs his head, fringe in his eyes so Wonsik can't look at him properly. Even then, he can see this whole entire future for them, travelling different systems and meeting all kinds of people, alien and non-alien alike; late nights watching the stars and planets drift by, on the floor of their home craft, talking about nothing and everything; visits to Wonsik's home, to his best friend; maybe a couple thousand egg babies, if that's something Taekwoon's into. None of it, he notes, ends right here and now.

Flushing slightly, Wonsik takes Taekwoon by the scruff of his neck, pulls him in for a kiss, rough, promising. "I'll get out," he swears, and breaks away, taking over the controls.

* * *

The explosions set to go off any minute are on hold, waiting for Hongbin's command. He and Sanghyuk have been chatting away as if they're lifelong friends (Jaehwan won't admit it but he watches on with envious eyes, wanting nothing more than to keep Sanghyuk for himself for the time being, but letting him act normal is important).

It turns out that Hongbin had managed to make his way to the site of this little mission by being at the edge of the star system, visiting some girl he's been flirting with lately? Jaehwan scoffs, claps a hand on Hongbin's shoulder, fixing Sanghyuk with a smiling eye.

"Romanticism will get you in trouble every time." Sanghyuk laughs and nods and bounces out of his seat to fit Jaehwan into his arms.

They pass the time like this, talking about everything and nothing, as people biding their time in space often do. Sanghyuk touches on what it had been like, kept prisoner by Estothans, talks a little about what he calls 'the water' and how insane it had made him. Hongbin offers a sympathetic nods. "That's common among our people, back when we still condoned torture," he explains. "Guess they're doing their research, too."

Sanghyuk shudders.

Hongbin then explains his plan for dismantling the space station. "I have these things set up at these points," he says, pointing to a few different spots on the map of the station that Hakyeon and Taekwoon had come up with together. "What they do is actually detach the parts of the station they're hooked up to, but with all the support systems still on. And out in space, the pressure combined with the artificial atmosphere, will cause the whole thing to crumple from the inside out. Kind of like deflating a football and watching it collapse."

"What's a football?" Sanghyuk, who's been actually taking notes, looks up, a little confused.

The room flashes that telltale deep violet, and suddenly Hakyeon and Taekwoon are there on the transport pad, arms folded around themselves, eyes closed, an eerie mockery of twins. It does not go unnoticed that Wonsik isn't there with them, and Jaehwan regards the pair with concerned eyes.

"Where is he?" asks Hongbin, hands starting to shake as they hover over the map.

"He said he'd be back," Taekwoon mumbles, fingers grazing the edges of his own lips, cheeks slightly flushed, and he looks almost...forlorn.

Everyone looks to Hakyeon for confirmation, and he nods. "He said." But the expression goes from grim to utterly unreadable, protecting them all as best Hakyeon can, and they all know the truth in spite of the words offered them.

The two of them hop down off the pad. "If he isn't back in five minutes," says Taekwoon, as firm as he can be, "then we can go ahead and do the..." He pauses, clearly irritated as he lifts his eyes to Hongbin's. "What'd you call it?"

"Plan 'Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions'," says Hongbin in all seriousness. The rest shift uncomfortably in their seats at the implication, even Jaehwan.

"...Yeah, that," agrees Taekwoon. "Uh. Give it more like seven minutes?"

"Can do, captain."

Hakyeon scoffs, tucking his chin into his palms and drumming his fingertips against the apples of his cheeks. "He is _not_ the captain."

"So you're the captain, then?" prods Sanghyuk, reaching out and wiping away a hardened fleck of lava from Hakyeon's face.

"I'm more the captain than he is." Even still, Hakyeon nudges Taekwoon with his shoulder, sliding him a shy look of friendly affection.

Six minutes go by. They banter back and forth until the tension is so thick that Jaehwan and Sanghyuk have to leave the room, Sanghyuk too tired of being tense and Jaehwan, generally, just too tired. No one questions where they go, just watch as they make their exit, Jaehwan managing to flounce even without intending to.

Thirty more seconds. Taekwoon's complexion has become a pallid green and he's sweating visibly, biting at his fingernails in an almost systematic fashion.

Fifteen more seconds, and the room glows that brilliant violet, and Wonsik is there, shaken, bloody, but there. Taekwoon makes a mad dash to the pad, cradles Wonsik to him, lifts him up and carries him away to their quarters, presumably for medical attention.

Hakyeon and Hongbin are alone in the room, and Hongbin keeps his hands just a hair's breadth from the command console.

"Go ahead and do it," Hakyeon recommends. Hongbin doesn't have to be told twice. He kicks the ship into warp gear, types in a few commands, and while they're whipping around at practically terminal velocity and things are crashing loudly behind closed doors and Hakyeon is holding on so tight he actually breaks the chair he'd been trying not to fall out of, it happens.

The station, a spoked wheel of a thing with polar points that have been blinking a bright, cruel red since Hongbin's arrival, starts to break into carapace segments, like a child pulled apart an insect. Just as predicted, they start to crumple, their soft, squishy insides unable to handle the dueling pressures of outside and inside, and eventually all the energy inside them doesn't handle it either.

The whole thing goes up in chemical and metaphysical flames as they speed away, into the next system, the next galaxy, far, far away from any of this.

In their quarters, Taekwoon is sealing Wonsik's wounds with a medical laser, not strong enough to fix him or anything but enough that they can dock and get him the treatment he needs. Wonsik, for the most part, is out of it, moaning something about how they had almost gotten him, about how he wasn't going to break a promise.

They end up on the closest planet with actual humans on it in hopes that they'll find a doctor capable of fixing whatever it is that's wrong with Wonsik. They still haven't heard the whole story and it's been half a day, but whenever someone asks him, Wonsik goes all glazed-over and fuzzy around the edges, as if he doesn't want to talk about it, and no one wants to push.

When they finally locate said doctor, Taekwoon perusing the local ads until he finds something promising and figures it's worth a shot, Wonsik is so woozy he may as well be drunk. He keeps laughing at nothing. "Make him stop," says Jaehwan, "he's scaring me." He gets another kick in the ass for that, but even he'll admit he deserves it this time.

They dock, the only issue being a pretty spiny monster of a customs officer insisting he's going to have to search their ship. One of his spines drips what appears to be some kind of acid onto the clipboard he holds between what must be termed his fins. Taekwoon slips him a little bit of the money. "I know where the exchange booth is," he says, leading the way, Wonsik tucked neatly under his arm, limp against his broad frame. "We're passing by there, do you want to come?"

Hongbin, on Wonsik's other side, supporting him as well, snickers under his breath, but when the spine-thing focuses its dozen or so eyes on Hongbin he straightens himself out pretty quickly.

Jaehwan, Hakyeon, and Sanghyuk, left to their own devices, choose to watch their new friends' retreat for a long moment, until they disappear around a corner. Then both Hakyeon and Jaehwan are wrapping Sanghyuk in their arms, hugging him so tight that he actually struggles to breathe. "Let's go to bed," suggests Hakyeon as if it's the most natural thing in the world, and he can't really tell because Sanghyuk is back to his natural pink, but he might be blushing a little.

They sneak into the ship like horny teenagers looking for their first safe hookup spot and waste absolutely no time falling into Wonsik and Taekwoon’s quarters.

* * *

Hongbin doesn't leave Wonsik's side. Wonsik is still amazed, when he comes out from under anesthesia, all stitched up with laser thread by a nurse who has more colours in their skin than the rainbow, that his best friend has been here this long. Usually Hongbin can't sit still unless he's doing one of his marathon gaming sessions. Wonsik goes as far as to call him out for this, and Hongbin just shakes his head. "Rest, idiot," he says with all the affection someone like him can muster, and Wonsik takes it to heart as he takes his medicine, rests his head on the pillow again.

Taekwoon, however, is in and out. "He said he doesn't like hospitals or doctors or any of that," Hongbin explains, glancing up from a comm with Sanghyuk. "It makes him really nervous. So does being in one place for a long time."

Wonsik grumbles. "I could've told you that."

Sanghyuk is busy chattering away about how he, Hakyeon, and Jaehwan have gone to the outer reaches of a distant galaxy and are studying culture and civilisation. "We're looking for the planet with the least warfare," he says, and even from his bed Wonsik can hear how much excitement is contained in Sanghyuk's voice. "I've received approval to present my research at the Estothan-Giepran relations conference that's supposed to be held within the next year or so. It gives me a ton of time to look into everything."

"What about time with your boyfriends?" Hongbin flashes a sly smile, and Sanghyuk makes a choked noise on the other end.

Eventually it all comes to a halt, Sanghyuk having to leave due to landing...somewhere, Wonsik didn't exactly catch it, and he's got his best friend's attention again.

In an instant, Wonsik wishes he didn't have it. "So what happened in there?" Hongbin has been kind, hasn't asked once, but knowing him Wonsik assumes the curiosity is killing him.

"I was alone in that room for...a minute," Wonsik begins. "And then they just...I don't know, I looked down, trying to figure out how to slow down the reaction time on the command that sent someone somewhere, or whatever, trying to...get somewhere. I couldn't talk to any of you guys, I couldn't tell you to open the frequencies so that whatever came through would just come through. No one was there, it would've been safe until I could come out the other side and close it up." Hongbin nods, and Wonsik takes a deep breath, pressing on. "And then there were so many of them. I thought me and Hakyeon and Taekwoon had taken care of a lot, but...no, there were too many." He shudders. "I don't know how it happened, but I tricked one of them into pushing the button for me. They don't even understand me and I'm killing off their...what, their brothers in arms? One by one, just shooting them down."

Hongbin rests a hand on the crook of Wonsik's elbow. "Stop talking now," he suggests, cheerful but firm, and Wonsik smiles, watery, coughing out a sob. He knows now that, after being trapped in that room alone for nearly seven minutes, he doesn't ever want to feel caught somewhere again.

Taekwoon comes to visit that evening, and Hongbin excuses himself, citing that he needs to find a charge station for his console. "If this backwoods planet even has these," he says, rolling his eyes and ducking out the door.

"Hey," Wonsik greets as Taekwoon takes a seat on the edge of the hospital bed, palm resting on Wonsik's knee. "Nice to see you again. I thought you weren't coming back this time."

Taekwoon shakes his head. "I'll always come back for you if I can."

Suddenly, the hospital is suffocating, and Taekwoon regards Wonsik like he understands even though neither of them say it. "Can we leave soon?"

"How soon?"

"As soon as possible."

Smiling, Taekwoon nods again. "I'll go find the doctor."

The next morning as he's signing a million and one discharge forms, Wonsik flags down Hongbin, who's gathering the few things that Wonsik had managed to bring with him into the hospital and shoving them into a bag. "Hey, um, you wanna do me a favour?"

"Nope." Hongbin beams. "What's up?"

"Cancel my exam for me. I have no idea when I'm coming home."

Hongbin stays quiet, smile fading, but nods. "I'll be waiting for you, asshole."

"Yeah, yeah. Shut up, jerkface."

* * *

A week later, when Wonsik is nearly finished recuperating from his injuries, he and Taekwoon are alone on their brand new ship together, the first time since that first date that they've spent any kind of quality time together, just the two of them with no objection in mind. They lie together on the floor of their sleeping quarters, enjoying the blessed quiet of not having anyone else with them, pausing only in their incessant staring at the craft's ceiling to stare into each other's eyes instead. "Remember how we met?" asks Taekwoon.

"What, how you saved my life and shit?" Wonsik's lips turn up into a wry grin.

"Yeah," Taekwoon agrees, scooting in and resting his head in the hollow of Wonsik's shoulder. "I think I could've told you this would happen then."

"What, us having to save someone's life and blow up someone else's space station?" Wonsik laughs quietly.

"No." Taekwoon's laughing, too, in that way that crinkles up his nose and that makes Wonsik fall for him a little more every time. "No one could've known that would happen. But...this. Me and you."

"You think so?" And Wonsik dusts a kiss to Taekwoon's temple, gives his hand a squeeze.

"Where do you want to go next?" Taekwoon asks in the way of answering.

"Anywhere," sighs Wonsik, draping his arm around Taekwoon's chest, using him for leverage to turn and kiss him.

Just then, the craft rattles loudly beneath them. A sensor beeps somewhere in the other room. Wonsik doesn't have to look to know that they are out of fuel. "Told you we should've gotten powered up back there," he chuckles against Taekwoon's lips.

"I'll call one of the guys," Taekwoon offers, making no move to do so, kissing Wonsik again and again and again.

**Author's Note:**

> as per usual, come yell at me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/takoyaken) if you feel the need, i know i wanna yell at me sometimes


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